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i LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.# 


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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 


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WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


INSPIRATION, CANON, AND INTERPRETATION 
CONSIDERED AND ILLUSTRATED. 


v 

By Rey. BRADFORD K. PEIRCE. 


“ Open thou mine eyes, 

That I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” 



“SS5U 

IT’s 

\^GB 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

CARL T ON <& PORTE R, 

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 




™ p 96-024 7l 


PREFACE. 


rjlHE writer of this volume has sought to place in 
the hands of young students, and interpreters of 
the Bible who are not familiar with the original 
tongues in which the Holy Scriptures were written, 
or favored with an easy access to the treasures of 
sacred criticism which are constantly accumulating, 
such evidences of the authenticity, genuineness, and 
general purity of the English version of the Old and 
New Testaments, arising out of its history and the 
searching examinations to which it has been submitted, 
that they may open it with confidence to discover in 
its revelations the mind of the Spirit. He has sought, 
also, to set forth and illustrate the nature of its 
inspiration, the most obvious preliminary studies and 
preparations for a safe interpretation of its contents, 
and the most important rules for the guidance of the 
interpreter in his work. The writer has not proposed 
fully to enter upon the argument on which rests the 
confirmed judgment of evangelical Christians upon 


4 


PREFACE. 


these topics, but to indicate and illustrate the various 
steps in it, so that the Bible student will be enabled 
to have a clear comprehension of its nature and force ; 
and, at his leisure, to turn to the abundant authorities 
crowding our Christian literature for an exhaustive 
examination of these questions. 

The author has sought constantly to keep in view 
the great class of teachers just now awakened to 
earnest inquiry as to the means of meeting the serious 
requisitions made upon them as interpreters of the 
word of God to the children of our land, and to 
prepare his volume in such a way as best to aid them 
in their work. 

He has availed himself of such sources of informa- 
tion as he could secure in the various branches of 
biblical criticism involved in his work, and has ren- 
dered credit to them in the body of the volume. 
Special aid has been derived from the Hermeneutical 
Manual of Dr. Fairbairn, and from the admirable 
works of the same author upon Prophecy and Typol- 
ogy. Valuable suggestions have been gleaned from 
Alford’s Prolegomena to his Greek Testament, and 
his interesting work under the title of How to Study 
the New Testament; from Nast’s General Introduc- 
tion to the Gospels ; from Prof. Murphy’s Introduction 
to his Commentary upon Genesis ; from Schaff’s 
History of the Christian Church; from Westcott’s 


PEEFACE. 


5 


invaluable Introduction to the Study of the New 
Testament, and his History of the Canon ; from 
Horne ; from Davidson ; from Cowper’s Apocryphal 
Gospels; and from the Boyle Lectures for 1866 on 
Christ and Christendom by Plumptre. Rev. David 
Dobie has written a strong, original, and sprightly 
work upon interpretation, entitled “A Key to the 
Bible but its rules of interpretation are unneces- 
sarily multiplied, and nearly all of them singularly 
tend to elaborate from Scripture one modern system 
of theology. Its illustrations have been of great 
service to the writer. Prof. M’Lelland’s work upon 
the Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures has 
been laid under contribution for the same purpose ; 
as also Gaussen upon the Canon. A scientific and 
comprehensive work upon the Hermeneutics of the 
New Testament by a Dutch clergyman, Dr. Doedes, 
has been consulted with profit ; and a late English 
work by J. Radford Thomson upon Symbols. We 
owe, and are happy to express, special obligation to 
Dr. Goulburn for his rich little treatise upon the 
Devotional Study of the Bible. Much assistance has 
been rendered by the Hand-Book of the Bible of 
Angus. The works of Stanley and Milman, and the 
various Biblical Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries, have 
been examined, as their valuable contents have offered 
aid in the work. 


6 


PREFACE. 


We trust that our labor, which has from first to 
last been a labor of love, will not be in vain, but that 
our little volume may become a guide to many young 
explorers among the hidden mines and treasures of 
Holy Scripture. 

B. K. Peirce. 

Riverside Parsonage, 

Randall’s Island, March , 1868. 


C ONTENTS 


CHAPTER L 

THE BIBLE. 

God revealed by Inspired Men, and by an Inspired Book — In 
Harmony with the Creation of the World — Light first, and then the 
Sun — Written Scriptures commence with Moses — Like the Sun and 
Stars, they become permanent Sources of Bevelation — The same 
Truth is illustrated in the New Testament Scriptures — Inspired 
Men first, and then Inspired Books — The Holy Spirit closed the 
Canon — Error of Edward Irving — Eolly of Spiritualists — The 
“Inner Light” never superior to the Bible — Bible only Eule of 
Faith — Necessity for an infallible Eule Page 13 


CHAPTER n. 

INSPIRATION. 

God the Author, Men the Writers, of the Bible — Oldest Volume 
in the World — Various Authors and Styles — Teachings of all Har- 
monize — Writers were not acquainted with the Sciences — Used a 
simple, figurative, and poetic Form of Expression adapted to all 
Ages — They claim to be Inspired — Established by their Veracity 
— Human Authorship impossible from nature of Eevelations — Words 
not necessarily Inspired — Dr. Schaff’s view — Vei-bal Inspiration 
would require a constant Miracle — Varied forms of Inspiration 
illustrated — Alford’s view of Inspiration — The Scripture view of 
Inspiration by Prof. Murphy 19 

CHAPTER HI. 

THE CANON: ITS GENUINENESS. 

Is our English Bible the word of God Eevealed? — Original Lan- 
guage of the Old Testament — Apocrypha — Care taken by the Jews 
to preserve the Purity of the Scriptures — Philo and Josephus — 


8 


CONTENTS. 


Samaritan Pentateuch — Spread of the Greek Language over Bible 
Lands — Jews in Egypt — The Septuagint — This Version was used 
by Christ — The Syriac or Peshito Version — Italic — Origen and his- 
Version — Jerome — The Vulgate — Its gradual introduction into 
the Eoman Church — The first book printed — Declared infallible 
by the Council of Trent — Different Editions of it — Various Versions 
of the Scriptures — New Testament Canon — First Oral Communica- 
tions from Inspired Men — Many Eecords were made, all but the 
Four Gospels have disappeared — Matthew — Characteristics of his 
Gospel — Mark — His Epistle written under the Sanction of Peter — 
Evidently the Gospel of an Eye-witness — Luke writes under the 
direction of Paul — Eesident of Antioch — Sources of his Gospel — 
Whence account of the Nativity -derived — John wrote last — Call 
for his Gospel in the false views of Christ prevalent in the Churches 

— A marvelous Book, when it is recollected its Human Author was 
a Fisherman — Paul’s Epistles — Peter affirms them to be Inspired — 
Testimony of Papias to the Gospels — Iren® us — Tertullian — Justin 
Martyr — The Sjriac Version — Origen — Pamphilius — Eusebius — 
Constantine the Great orders fifty Copies of the Septuagint to be 
prepared by Eusebius and circulated among the Churches — Some 
Books of the New Testament for awhile held in suspense — Apocry- 
phal Books of the New Testament — Use of them — Character of them 

— First English Version by Wiclif — First printed Version by Tyn- 

dale — Sufferings and Martyrdom of Tyndale — Fate of his Work — 
Edition by John Eogers — Coverdale’s Bible — Effect of circulating 
Bible in England — Froude’s opinion of Tyndale’ s Version — Douay 
Version — Martin Luther — Influence upon Biblical Criticism — Ger- 
man Version — The Authorized English Version — Effect of Eevival 
of Letters upon Biblical Criticism — Fears at first entertained — 
Olsbausen — Bengel — Fears entirely removed — Nature of Varia- 
tions— Prof. Norton upon Purity of Text Page 31 


CHAPTER IV. 

INTERPRETATION : GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

Hermeneutics — Office of Biblical Interpretation — Peculiarities 
of the Bible rendering its interpretation difficult — Why was it 
given in this Form ? — Analogy with Human Life — Dr. Schaff on 
the Character of the Bible— Locke on things difficult to be under- 
stood — Wonderful things in Nature hidden from our sight — Diffi- 
culty and Mystery add to the interest of Scripture — Exertion 
required to obtain the Treasures of Nature — Hidden Truths of 
Scripture — Bible presents Facts and Principles, but does not make 


CONTENTS. 


9 


Moral Applications — Distinction between Attention and Thought — 
Failure in Sunday-schools — Devotional Thought — The whole Bible 
should be studied — Christ in the whole Bible — Bevelation Pro- 
gressive — Dr. Chalmers upon Progress in Moral Consciousness — 
Progress in the New Testament — Olshausen upon Unity and Prog- 
ress in Scripture — Locke on reading a Book of Scripture through 
at a sitting — Sacred Writers sometimes state their object — Beauty 
and Power of Scripture lost when taken from its connections — Each 
Gospel has a Character of its own — Scripture is not a Bevelation of 
Science — Dr. Stowe on the unscientific Character of the Bible — 
Folly of interpreting Genesis as a Treatise upon Geology — Common- 
sense an interpreter of the Bible — True Science cannot harm the 
Bible — The Bible is not a “Body of Divinity” — Different Truths 
are taught in different places — Goulburn’s illustration of this from 
Nature — Error of Bationalists and Universalists — Interpreter not 
Responsible for what God says — Dr. Doedes upon this irresponsi- 
bility — Error of early Interpreters — Fanciful Interpretations — 
Reformation changed this — Illustrations of Ancient Interpretation 
— Historico-Grammatical Interpretation Page 68 


CHAPTER V. 

PRELIMINARY STUDIES. 

Study of Ancient Languages — Importance of a Knowledge of 
Biblical Geography — Renan — Hibbard and Vincent — Effect of 
Pilgrimages to the Holy Land — Dean Stanley’s Account of the 
Vicinity of Hebron — Works upon Bible Geography — -Value in the 
interpretation of Prophecy — The Cities of Bashan — Rev. J. L. 
Porter in Bashan — Present appearance of the Country — John L. 
Stephens in Petra — Fulfillment of Prophecy — Most interesting 
reading for the Young — Customs and Manners of the East — Sir S. 
W. Baker — Song of Solomon — Parables — Sitting at Table — Break- 
ing of Bread — Symbols — The Ceremonial Law — Symbols carried 
to Extremes — Symbolical Numbers — Natural Symbols — Animal 
Symbols — Jerusalem and Babylon — Earthly Royalty — The Vin- 
tage and Harvest — Harps, Keys, and Book — The Bride — Bat- 
tle of Armageddon — Symbolical Acts — Marriage of Prophet to 
Prophetess — Symbols of Hosea and Ezekiel — Symbols should 
be interpreted with care — Must be in sympathy with the Sacred 
Writers — Hagenbach on inward interest — Dr. Paulus — Why 
so little interest in the Bible? — Man needs the Holy Spirit — 
Illustrated by Sun Dial — The Spirit acts through the Human 
Mind 100 


10 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VI. 

RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 

Eule I — The Obvious Meaning of the Words the True One — 
Bengel on holding to the Text — Melanchthon on the Sense of 
Scripture — Luther’s view — Writers, humble, open, and sincere. 
Eemark 1. When an Impossibility seems to be asserted, it is not to 
be taken literally — Illustrations of this — The Body and Blood of 
Christ in the Sacrament — How to know a figurative Expression — 
“Buried with him in Baptism.” Eemark 2. The Meaning must 
not contradict our Moral Sense — Figurative Precepts — ‘ ‘ Many made 
Sinners ” — What the Apostle teaches in reference to this — “ The 
Wicked made for the Day of Evil” — Nothing Contradictory to oui 
Moral Convictions. Eemark 3. Anything Contradictory to Uni- 
versal Experience must be Modified. Eemark 4. Poetry and 
Prophecy must not be interpreted literally. Rule II. The Mean- 
ing of the Words must be taken in accordance with the Usages 
of Speech at the time they were Uttered — Changes in our own 
Language — Bearing our own and others’ Burdens — The Power of 
Christ resting upon one — Hebraisms — Things said to be done when 
attempted — One who Occasions an Act said to do it — Difficult 
things said to be Impossible — Passages referring Human Acts to 
God — Names of Parents used for Descendants — Eelatives called 
Brothers. Eule III. By the Use of Parallel Passages the Bible 
should be made its own Expositor — Importance of Eeference Bible 
— Bishop Horsley on comparison of Scripture with Scripture — True 
meaning of Doctrines thus Discovered — Error of Jews — Must 
compare like Terms — Import of the term Baptize — How to use 
Parallel Passages — Scripture Terms often have Different Significa- 
tions — Gospel Writers Supplement each other — The “ Strait 
Gate ” — Context must be carefully examined — The Messianic 
Psalms — No Doctrine should be Built up on Separate Clauses of 
Scripture — The Prodigal Son and the Address to Nicodemus — 
Dying in Adam, Living in Christ — The strongest meaning not 
always the correct one — Perverted Texts — Scripture distinctly 
presents both Human and Divine Nature of Christ. Eule IV. All 
Scripture must be interpreted in Harmony with the Analogy of 
Faith — All apparent discrepancies must be harmonized in accord- 
ance with this Eule — False foundation of Papal Purgatory — Pas- 
sages referring to God after the manner of Men — Why God is thus 
spoken of— “ Upon this rock I will build my Church ” — “ Covering 
a multitude of Sins ” — Scripture Difficulties no occasion for Dis- 


CONTENTS. 


11 


couragement — Abundant answers to all Difficulties — Never give 
an unsatisfactory Answer — Dean Alford upon Discrepancies of the 
New Testament — Henry Rogers upon the same. Rule Y. The 
Spiritual Meaning is to be earnestly Sought After — Bible given for a 
Special Purpose — God teaches some Lesson in every portion — 
Error of Ernesti and Grotius — Westcott on Spiritual Interpretation 
— The view of Horne Page 124 


CHAPTER VII. 

INTERPRETATION OF PARABLE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY. 

Principal Parables delivered in the last year of our Lord’s Life — 
Distinguishing marks of his Parables — Reasons for using them — 
View of Tholuck — Aid in remembering Discourses — Powerfully 
impressed the Truth — Used to vail Truth, because it had been 
Neglected — Analogous to all Christ’s Work — Mr. Gladstone’s view 
of the Parables — Christ supreme in them — First Rule : Must fully 
Understand the Parable in all its parts — Second Rule : Discover 
from the context the Exact Truth to be Illustrated — Lisco on the 
Kernel of the Parable — Lesson of the Parables in the fifteenth of 
Luke — Parable of the Rich Fool — Of the Householder and his 
Laborers — Third Rule: The separate parts of the Parable should 
not be considered out of their relation to the Story — Apt to overdo 
in Interpretation — Illustrated from Trench — Much of the Bible 
Poetic — Easily remembered — Sir Patrick Hume — Psalms sung in 
all Times — They are to be interpreted according to the Laws of 
Rhetoric — A Doctrinal Statement not to be built up on Figurative 
Language — Illustrations from Psalms — Literal rendering of some 
shown to be Absurd — To be interpreted in sympathy with the feel- 
ings of the Psalmist — Poetry of the Imagination and of the Affec- 
tions — The Times and Circumstances of their Composition throw 
light upon their Interpretation — Dr. Townsend’s Arrangement — 
Illustration from Stanley’s History of the Jewish Church — Parallel- 
ism of the Psalms, Synonomous, Antithetic, Synthetic — The Vin- 
dictive Psalms not expressions of Personal Wrath — The Songs of 
the Persecuted of all Ages — Dr. Park’s Illustration from the late 
War — Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are Divine Repositories of Moral 
Maxims — Solomon’s Song — Isaac Taylor’s View — Prophecy 
abounds in the Bible — Illustrative Events said to be the Fulfill- 
ment — Rachel weeping — Calling out of Egypt — History fulfilled 
Prophecy — Prophet no idea of Time — Jesus did not appeal to 
Figures — Prophecies of New Testament — Prophecy not History — 
Hour of Christ’s second coming not Revealed — Irving’s Error — Dr. 


12 


CONTENTS. 


Cumming — What the Bible teaches in reference to the End of the 
World — Prophecy a profitable Study — A grand Epic — Dr. Schaff’s 
View Page 167 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD’S LITERATURE. 

Never before so widely Circulated — Bitter attack made upon it — 
Foes under the garb of Friends — Object of Attack, Christ and God’s 
Word — We have no occasion for anxiety — the Bible has gained 
from these attacks — Its literature prodigious — Compared with 
Shakspeare — The latter owes much to the Bible — Gray’s Elegy 
compared with the Twenty-third Psalm — Henry Stephanus on 
Psalms — John von Mueller — Alexander von Humboldt — Goethe — 
Its hold upon the most powerful Minds — Kousseau — Coleridge — 
Carlyle — Bishop Butler — Wilberforce — W ebster — Sir Francis Ba- 
con — Milton — Newton — Lord Erskine — Guizot — Talleyrand — 
No other Book can take the place of the Bible — Such a Book cannot 
die — Walter Scott’s Bible Motto 207 


THE 


WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


CHAPTER I, 


THE BIBLE. 


OD revealed Himself and his will, at first, to man by in- 
spired men ; “ holy men of God spake as they God revealed 



by inspired 
men and by 
an inspired 
book. 


were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 1 Afterward he 


caused these revelations to be gathered into an in- book - 
spired book : “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” 2 
This course is in wonderful harmony with the di- in harmony 


vine economy in the creation of the world. Light ^id. of the 
was formed upon the first day ; “ in the beginning . . . God 
said, Let there be light.” 3 This light was diffused through 
chaotic nature, emanating from no local or material fountains : 
“ and God saw the light that it was good.” It was not until 
the fourth day that these floods of light were collected into 
suns and fixed stars, and became ever after the divinely- 
appointed sources of illumination. “ And God said, Let there 
be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day 
from the night . . . and the evening and the morning were 
the fourth day.” 4 

i 2 Peter i, 21. 2 2 Tim. iii, 16. 3 Gen. 1,1, & * Gen. i, 14-19. 


14 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


For twenty-five hundred years, until the time of Moses, 
Written Scrip- religious light was diffused and faint, kindled by 
Moses. Wlth direct communications of God to favored indi- 
viduals ; but in his day God began to cause permanent lights, 
in the form of written Scriptures, to take their lasting places 
in the moral firmament, to shed their divine beams upon 
human hearts, and to “ divide the light from the darkness.” 
Like the sun and stars, they have held their places unmoved, 

These lights constantly shedding forth their light over the 
are perma- 
nent. origin, decay, and destruction of human govern- 

ments and the proudest works of man : “ Heaven and earth 
shall pass away,” but these “words” of divine revelation 
“ shall not pass away.” 5 

After the same analogy, the Scriptures of the New Testa- 
The same ment were given. God spake first by inspired 

truth _ illus- 

New d Testa- men an 4 by direct communications. The prom- 
inent Scup ^ former covenant was, “In the last 

days (the times of the Messiah) I will pour out of my Spirit 

upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall 

prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your 

Prophecy of old men dream dreams ; and on my servants and 
the Messiah's 

times. on my handmaidens I will pour out in those 

days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy ;” 6 that is, they 
shall declare the revelations of God — the Gospel — under the 
immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 7 This promise 
was literally fulfilled. At first, upon all that believed, 

6 Matt, xxiv, 35. « Acts ii, 17, IS. 

7 See Introduction to Study of Holy Scriptures, by Dr. Goulburn, Article B, 
in Appendix. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


15 


miraculous powers of speaking or specific revelations of 
truth from the Holy Ghost were bestowed in- 

^ This proph- 

discriminately, as upon the company of believers ecy fu] lled ' 
at Pentecost, and afterward 8 upon the Roman centurion and 
the company collected in his house ; 9 upon the disciples 
scattered by persecution from Jerusalem, 10 and apparently 
wherever the apostles first introduced the preaching of the 
Gospel. The virgin daughters of Philip the evangelist were 
endowed with this divine gift, 11 and Priscilla united with 
her husband Aquila, then in Athens, driven by persecution 
from Rome, in expounding “ the way of God more perfectly ” 
to the eloquent Apollos, a Jew of Alexandria, himself mighty 
in the Hebrew Scriptures. 12 

But by divine inspiration this diffused light was collected 
into permanent orbs. God no longer made per- collected in a 

. . permanent 

sonal revelations of truth to individuals’ minds, form, 
but directed his chosen instruments to embody, under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, 13 such an expression of his truth 
as he desired to have made to the w r orld. He closed him- 
self the work of inspired revelation with the solemn words, 

“If any man shall add unto these things, God The Holy Spir- 
it closed the 

shall add unto him the plagues that are written canon, 
in this book ; and if any man shall take away from the words 
of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part 
out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from 
the things which are written in this book.” 14 

In overlooking this truth, so in harmony with the divine 

8 Acts ii, 4 ; i v, 31. 9 Acts x, 44-46. 10 Acts xi, 19, 21. 1 1 Acts xxi, 9. 

i 2 Acts xviii, 24-26. 1 3 John xlv, 26. 1 4 Rev. xxii, IS, 19. 


16 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Error of Ed 
ward Irving. 


processes in the natural world, taught in the Scriptures 
themselves, and confirmed by the history of the Church, the 
eloquent and devoted Edward Irving, and his 
sincere but misguided followers, in England, 
turned the worship of the sanctuary into a babel of unmean- 
ing sounds, and blasphemously attributed to that Spirit who 
brought order out of chaos, the awful and insane jargon of 
tongues which drove every rational worshiper from the house 
of God. 

The same condemnation must be declared against those in 
• modern times, of a coarser mold, less scholarly, 
and far less pious, (however sincere some may be, 
and however bewildered by strange physical phenomena, the 
laws of which are not clearly understood,) who suppose that 
they have, or pretend that they have, communication with 
the world of spirits. They are self-deceived, or their minds 
are perverted by the devil. God does not reveal his truth in 
this way, “for God is not the author of confusion, but of 
peace .” 16 

This view of divine truth is opposed to the doctrine of 
The “inner those who hold that any “inner light ” with 
Bible? the which they are favored can take the place of 
the Bible as a rule of life. The Holy Spirit cannot deny 
himself; and having spoken harmoniously through a long line 
of chosen men, and having himself closed the canon of in- 
spiration, he will not contradict this revelation in the hearts 
of believers. “ Thy word,” said the Psalmist more than 
twenty-eight hundred years ago, before even the Old Testa- 
15 1 Corinthians xiv, 33. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


IT 


ment Scriptures had been closed, “is a lamp unto my feet, 
and a light unto my path .” 18 

The Bible, not as explained by commentators, or held by 

any particular branch of the Church, or illus- The Bible the 

alone rule 

trated by tradition, or confirmed by human jj a $ke. and 

reason, but as given by God through the holy men that 

wrote its pages, and truthfully interpreted from their lips, is 

our infallible rule of faith and practice. 

Of the necessity of this great superhuman orb of light, 

Dr. Goulburn remarks that it arises from man’s “utter 

mental darkness as to his destiny, as to his duties, and 

as to his dangers; above all, as to the meth- Necessity for 

. this infallible 

od in which he must be saved. A revelation ™ie. 

upon these points must be made to him by God if his 

feet are to be set upon the way that leadeth unto life. That 

need is represented by imagining men in a state of natural 

darkness, unrelieved save by a few twinkling stars. Let the 

faint and feeble ray of these stars represent all the aid which 

man can get from what is proudly called the moral sense ; 

that is, his innate notions of right and wrong. Can you see 

objects by starlight in their true colors? Can you avoid 

pitfalls and marshes and stumbling-blocks by starlight ? 

Can you do any work effectually by starlight ? or is it not 

rather true that we must work while we have sunlight ; and 

that when the night cometh no man can work ? In a similar 

manner we see not good and evil in their true colors ; we are 

ignorant of the tremendous danger of sinful courses, ignorant 

of the traps which Satan sets in our way, ignorant of how to 

16 Psalm cxix, 105. 

2 


18 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


serve God properly, and as he would be served, without 
instruction from above on these and similar points. We 
must have light, and this light is called revelation, the 
revelation under which we live (or Christian revelation) 
being the clearest and best ever yet vouchsafed to the 
world.” 17 

17 Devotional Study of the Scriptures, p. 184. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


19 




CHAPTER II 


INSPIRATION. 


IIE Bible claims God as its author, but all its pages were 
written by human hands, and bear the sig- God the nu- 

J 7 ° thnr mpn 1 1 a 



thor, men tl e 


nificant marks of the different writers. Its Bible? 3 ° f tLe 
various books were written at different periods, often with 
long lapses of time between them. Its first records, the five 
books attributed to Moses, and called from their number in 
Greek the Pentateuch, were written more than thirty-three 
hundred years ago — fifteen hundred years before Christ ; its 
last book is supposed to have been completed in the year of 
our Lord one hundred. It was, therefore, during the long 
period of sixteen hundred years that the work of revelation 
was going on. 

The Bible contains the oldest writings in the world. The 
most ancient human histories now in existence, B i ble the old _ 

est volume in 

those of Herodotus and Thucydides, were writ- the world, 
ten a thousand years after the times of Moses. It is com- 
posed of sixty-six different books, and was written by, at 
least, forty different authors. It is generally written in the 
language of common life, but always in a style various au- 


thors and dif- 


of commanding simplicity and dignity. Its hu- ferent styles, 
man authors filled almost every position in life from the 
humblest to the most exalted. The peculiarities of the 
writers, their cultivation or lack of it, the times in which 


20 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


they lived, the dialect they used, the station they filled, their 

gradual advance in divine illumination, are all disclosed hi 

the various books forming the completed revelation of the 

will of God to man. Some of the books are historical, some 

Character of of them summaries of religious rites, some gen- 
tbe different 

books. ealogical, others dramatical and poetical, and 

others still in highly-wrought and sublime figures embody 

prophecies stretching through all ages. The wonderful truth 

in reference to them all is, that, when thus brought together 

Ail harmoni- from so many sources, from so many ages, in so 
ous in their 

teachings. many styles, and composed separately without 
reference to their final collection in one volume, there should 
be found throughout them all an absolute harmony in their 
revelations of the character and purposes of God, of the 
nature and necessities of man, and of the one great, divine 
plan of human redemption. Each portion seems to be nat- 
urally related to the others, and has an important office to 
perform in completing the perfect and harmonious scheme. 

In every respect, excepting their remarkable knowledge of 
MMenot Sf- divine truths, the Scripture writers were like 
science. their neighbors. They had no special knowledge 
above their fellows as to general science and history. They 
did not pronounce their revelations in a scientific form. If 
this had not been the case, Dean Milman 1 remarks, how 
utterly unintelligible would their words have been to their 
fellow-men! Conceive of a prophet, or psalmist, or an 
apostle, endowed with premature knowledge, and talking of 
the various geological periods in the history of the earth, or 
1 History of Jews. Preface to revised edition. Vol. i, pp. 17-19. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


21 


of the planetary system according to the Newtonian laws, 
instead of simply declaring “in the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth,” and speaking of the “ snn going 
forth as a bridegroom to run his course !” They disclosed 
the mighty truths of God in the common and ordinarily pic- 
turesque and poetic language of the days in which they lived. 
This form, requiring now careful study and re- Clothed in fig- 
flection to apprehend its exact meaning, was guage. lan 
inseparable from their daily life, and the only common 
medium for the conveyance of revelation to all ages. In no 
other form, humanly speaking, would they have struck so 
deep into the mind and heart of man, or clung to it with 
such inseverable tenacity. It is as speaking frequently in 
the noblest poetry, and constantly addressing the imagina- 
tive as well as the reasoning faculty of man, that these 
Scriptures have survived through ages, and have been and 
are still imperishable when considered only as the work of 
human minds. As the teachers were men of their age in all 
but religious advancement, so their books were the books of 
their age. They were the oracles of God in their divine 
instructions, while the language in which they were spoken 
was human, and uttered in a style to be understood by the 

half-enlightened people for whose benefit they Revelation ia 

thus adapted 

were first declared ; and, what is still more sig- t0 a11 a s es - 
nificant of their divine origin, revealing clearly the same 
truths in an impressive manner to races of different customs 
and tongues far advanced in civilization, and familiar with 
the amazing disclosures of modem science. 

Although speaking in their own natural style, and giving 


22 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


utterance often to their own personal emotions, or simply 

The writers recording events passing under their eyes, the 
claim to be 

inspired. writers claim for themselves and affirm of each 
other that their records contain the words of God, and are 
uttered under his inspiration. 

In no other way can their unity and harmony be accounted 
for. “ If the Scriptures are not the word of God,” says Pro- 
fessor Murphy in the introduction to his comments upon 
Claim to in Genesis, “then the writers of these Scriptures, 
tabiished by who directly and indirectly affirm their divine 

veracity of 

the writers. origin are false witnesses ; and if they have 

proved mrworthy of credit in this fundamental point, they 

can be of no authority on other equally important matters. 

But neither before examination, nor after an examination of 

eighteen centuries, have we the slightest reason for doubting 

the veracity of these men, and their unanimous evidence is 

in favor of the divine authorship of the Bible. All that we 

have learned of the contents of these books accords with 

their claim to be the word of God. The constant harmony 

of their statements when fairly interpreted with one another, 

Jevektkm ° f with g eneral history, and with physical and 

laws. ndtuial metaphysical truth, affords an incontestable 

proof of their divine origin. The statements of other early 

writers have invariably come into conflict with historical or 

scientific truth. But still further, these books communicate 

to us matters concerning God, the origin and the future 

Human au- destiny of man, which are of vital importance 
thorship im- 
possible. in themselves, and yet are absolutely beyond the 

reach of human intuition, observation, or deduction. It is 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


23 


impossible, therefore, for mere human beings, apart from 
divine instruction and authority, to attest these things to us 
at all. Hence these books, if they were not traceable ulti- 
mately to a divine author, would absolutely fail us in the 
very points that are essential to be known, namely, the origin 
of our being, the relation in which we stand to God, and the 
way to eternal happiness, on which neither science nor his- 
tory afford us any light. But they yield a clear, definite, and 

consistent light and help, meeting the very ask- They meet the 
. great- wants 

mgs and longings ot our souls on these moment- of our nature. 

ous topics. The wonderful way in which they convince the 

reason, probe the conscience, and apply a healing balm to 

the wounded spirit, is in itself an independent attestation to 

their divine origin .” 2 

The Bible is not a specimen of the style of the Holy Spirit 
as a writer ; but the different authors expressed The Bible not, 

a specimen of 

in their own language and by their own illustra- God’s style, 
tions the ideas poured into their minds from on high. The 
revelation is perfect and plenary, for it is divine; but the 
medium is imperfect and exposes its human limitations and 
weaknesses, and so much the more confirms the divine origin 
of the truths that are taught. If each word, as words not 

necessarily 

some teach, was inspired, then the writers were inspired, 
simply amanuenses, and every book of Scripture, like the 
Ten Commandments, is a specimen of divine and not human 
composition. The Son of man was no less a perfect man, 
hungering, thirsting, sleeping, weeping, because he was the 
Son of God ; and the Bible, with all its marks of human 
2 Commentary on Genesis. By James 8. Murphy, LL.D. 


24 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


hands and human weaknesses, is none the less a revelation of 

the word and will of God. Says Dr. Schaff, in his “ Ancient 

Christianity “ The New Testament presents in its way the 

same union of the divine and human natures as the person of 

Christ. In this sense also the ‘ word is made flesh and dwells 

Dr schaff on amon g us -’ The Bible is thoroughly human 

Scripture to (though without error) in contents and form, in 
Christ’s per- 

son - the mode of its rise, its compilation, its preser- 

vation, and transmission ; yet at the same time thoroughly 
divine both in its thoughts and words, in its origin, vitality, 
energy, and effect, and beneath the human servant-form of 
the letter the eye of faith discerns the glory of the only- 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” 3 

Westcott says, in his “Introduction to the Study of the 
westcott on New Testament:” “The human powers of the 
inspn ation. divine messenger act according to their natural 

laws, even when these laws are supernaturally strengthened. 
Man is not converted into a mere machine even in the hand 
of God. . . . The nature of man is not neutralized by the 
divine agency, and the truth of God is not impaired, but 
exactly expressed in one of its several aspects to the indi- 
vidual mind.” 

If the inspiration were verbal, then a constant miracle 
would have been required from the beginning to 

Verbal inspi- 

preserve the purity of the text, and every tran- 

stant miracle. 

scnber and translator into a new language must 
necessarily enjoy the same inspiration from the Holy Spirit . 4 
8 History of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 93. 

4 Dean Milman presents this objection to what is sometimes called mechani- 
cal or verbal inspiration. “ Is it the Hebrew or the Greek Septuagint of which 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


25 


But the Holy Spirit has simply acted through men, with 
divine wisdom revealing its own truths, while they have 
expressed it in accordance with their natural constitution 
and abilities. Through all Scripture Christ, the word of 
God, speaks from first to last, and all Scripture is permanently 
fitted for our instruction ; “ a true spiritual meaning, eternal 
and absolute, lies beneath historical, ceremonial, and moral 
details .” 4 

The manner in which inspiration is bestow r ecl, like every 
other gift of God, is determined by the neces- illustration 
sities of the case. “ At one time we may picture spiratiom m ’ 
to ourselves the lawgiver recording the letter of the divine 
law which he had received directly from God ‘inscribed 


every sentence, phrase, word, syllable is thus inspired. Every one knows, or 
ought to know, how much they differ, not only in the sense, hut in omissions 
and additional passages found in one, not in the other. It will be said, of 
course, the Hebrew. But the writers of the New Testament, when their cita- 
tions are verbally accurate, usually quote the Septuagint. For three or four 
centuries till the time of Jerome, the Septuagint was the Old Testament of the 
Church. Till Jerome no one of the Christian fathers, except perhaps Origen, 
knew Hebrew. All this time, then, the Christian world was without the true, 
genuine, only-inspired Scripture. For above ten centuries more the Church 
was dependent on the fidelity and Hebrew knowledge of Jerome for the in- 
spired word of God. Luther must have been, in this view, a greater benefactor 
to mankind than his fondest admirers suppose by his appeal to the Hebrew 
original, and was Luther an infallible authority for every word and syllable ?” — 
Preface to History of the Jews, p. 43. 

“ What matters it,” says St. Augustine in commenting upon the passage, “ Save, 
Lord, we perish,” the words and the time of their utterance being variously 
reported by the evangelists ; “What matters it whether the disciples, in calling 
on the Lord, really used one or another of these expressions, or some other 
differing from them all, but still giving the sense that they were perishing, and 
called on him to save them ?” — How to Study the Neio Testament , Dean Alford, 

p. 20. 

4 Westcott, p. 444. 


26 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


upon tables of stone • or spoken ‘ face to face.’ At another 
we may watch the sacred historian, unconsciously it may be, 
and yet freely, seizing on those facts in the history of the 
past which were the turning-points of a nation’s spiritual 
progress, gathering the details which combine to give the 
truest picture of each crisis, and grouping all according to 
the laws of a marvelous symmetry, which in after-times 
might symbolize their hidden meaning. Or we may see the 
prophet gazing intently on the great struggle going on 
around him, discerning the spirits of men and the springs of 
national life, till the relations of time no longer exist in his 
vision — till all strife is referred to the final conflict of good 
and evil foreshadowed in the great judgments of the world, 
and all hope is centered in the coming of the Saviour and in 
the certainty of his future triumph. Another, perhaps, looks 
within his own heart, and as a new light is poured over its 
inmost depths, his devotion finds expression in songs of per- 
sonal penitence and thanksgiving, in confession of sin and 
declarations of righteousness, which go far to reconcile the 
mysterious contradictions of our nature. To another is given 
the task of building up the Church. By divine instinct he 
sees in scattered congregations types of the great forms of 
society in coming ages, and addresses to them, not systems 
of doctrine, but doctrine embodied in deed, which applies to 
all time, because it expresses eternal truths, and yet specially 
to each time, because it is connected with the realities of 
daily life.” 6 

Thus all the different Scripture writings taken together 
0 Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Westcott, p. 37. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


27 


may be considered one harmonious message of God spoken 
in many parts and many manners, by men and to men, the 
distinct lessons of individual ages reaching from one time to 
all time. 

This same idea of inspiration is expressed by Alford in the 
prolegomena to his edition of the Greek Testa- 

Alford on ra- 

ment. He says, “ The inspiration of the sacred splratlon - 
writers I believe to have consisted in the fullness of the 
influence of the Holy Spirit specially raising them to, and 
enabling them for, their work, in a manner which distin- 
guishes them from all other writers in the world, and their 
work from all other works. The men were full of the Holy 
Ghost; the books are the pouring out of that fullness 
through the men, the conservation of the treasure in 
earthem vessels. The treasure is ours in all its richness; 
but it is ours as only it can be ours, in the imperfections of 
human speech, in the limitations of human thought, in the 
variety incident at first to individual character, and then to 
manifold transcription and the lapse of ages. The men 
were inspired, and the books are the results of that in- 
spiration.” 6 

6 Prolegomena to Alford’s Greek Testament, Harper’s Edition, p. 21. With 
the exception of the clause in the following quotation, which is italicized, we 
could not find, perhaps, a better succinct presentation of the doctrine of inspira- 
tion than is given by Garbett in his able treatise, written chiefly in defense of 
the theory of verbal inspiration. The author does not adhere to his definition' 
in the body of his work. “ There was (in writing the Iloly Scriptures) a con- 
currence of the act of God with the act of man. First, he endowed the man 
with these particular gifts, and chose him to be his instrument. Secondly, he 
guided his mind in the selection of what he should say, and of the revelation of 
the material of his writing where such a revelation was made necessary through 
the defect of human knowledge. Thirdly, he acted in and on the intellect and 


28 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Professor Murphy, in his introduction, presents the view 
The Scripture which the Scriptures themselves take of the 

view of in- „ . .... . . ,. 

spiration. nature of their own inspiration, insisting, liKe 

Gaussen, upon the inspiration of the book rather than of the 
writers. The Bible, however, just as clearly affirms that the 
holy men who wrote it were “moved by the Holy Ghost” 
as that the pages they inscribed were inspired. “ The Apostle 
Paul,” says Professor Murphy, “in writing to Timothy, a 
pastor and teacher in the Church of God, makes use of the 
following expressions (literally rendered) concerning Scrip- 
ture : ‘ The holy Scripta, able to make thee wise unto 
salvation;’ and, ‘Every Scripture given by inspiration of God 
and profitable for doctrine.’ From these expressions we 
gather the following order of doctrine concerning the origin 
and character of the Bible : 1. It is given by inspiration of 
God. 2. It is first holy; second, able to make wise unto 
salvation ; and third, profitable for doctrine and other pur- 
poses of edification. In these elements of the doctrine of in- 
spiration the following points are worthy of remark : 1. It is 
a writing , not a writer, of which the character is here given. 
The thing said to be inspired is not that which goes into the 
mind of the author, but that which comes out of his mind 
by means of his pen. It is not the material on which he is 

heart of the writer in the act of committing the words to writing; not only 
bestowing a more than human elevation, but securing the truthfulness of the 
thing written, and molding the language into the form accordant to his own 
will. To sum up the whole, verbal inspiration simply amounts to this : that 
while the words of Scripture are truly and characteristically the words of men, 
they are at the same time fully and concurrently the words of God.” — God's 
Word Written , p. 358. We should rather say, in the last clause of the closing 
sentence, they (the words) do fully and concurrently reveal the will of God. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


29 


to exercise his mind, but the result of that mental exercise 
which is here characterized. Hence, it has received all the 
impress, not merely of man in general, but even of the indi- 
vidual author in particular, at the time when it is so desig- 
nated. It is that piece of composition which the human 
author has put into a written form which is described as 
inspired. 2. To be inspired of God, is to be communicated 
from God, who is a Spirit, to the mind of man. The mode 
of communication we do not pretend to explain, but the 
possibility of such communication we cannot for a moment 
doubt. The immediate author of a human book may not be 
the ultimate author of a single sentiment it con- niustratton 
tains. He may have received every fact from the Hbie. P ° f 
trustworthy witnesses, who are, after all, the real vouchers 
for all it records ; and the very merit of the immediate 
author may consist in judiciously selecting the facts, faith- 
fully adhering to his authorities, and properly arranging his 
materials for the desired effect. Analogous to this is the 
divine authorship of the sacred volume. By the inspiration 
of the Almighty the human author is made to perceive cer- 
tain things divine and human, to select such as are to be 
revealed, and to record these with fidelity in the natural 
order, and to the proper end. The result is a writing given 
by inspiration of God, with all the peculiarities of man and 
all the authority of God. 3. Such a written revelation is 
‘ holy.’ The primary holiness of a writing is its 
truth. God’s part in it secures its veracity and 
credibility. Even man often tells the truth where he is a 
disinterested witness ; and we believe not only his sincerity 


The holiness 
of the Bible. 


30 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Office of the 
Bible. 


but bis competence. God, who cannot lie, is able to secure 
his scribes from error, intentional or unintentional. The 
secondary holiness of a writing appears in the two following 
particulars : 4. It is also ‘ able to make wise unto salvation.’ 

This refers to the kind of truth contained in the 
book of God. It is a revelation of mercy, of 
peace on earth, and good-will to man. This, at the same 
time, imparts an unspeakable interest to the book, and points 
out the occasion warranting the divine interference for its 
composition. 5. It is also ‘ profitable for doctrine.’ It tends 
to holiness. It is moral as well as merciful in its revelations. 
It contains truth, mercy, and righteousness. It reflects, there- 
fore, the holiness of God. It is in all respects worthy of its 
high original.” 7 

The discussion upon this vital topic may be closed by 
Summary of sa yi n g that this completed book of holy writ- 
discussion. j n g S fr aSj from its beginning to its end, been 

prepared under the immediate direction and inspiration of 
the divine Spirit, and through all its various pages God does 
disclose his nature and perfections to our race, and so ex- 
hibits his purposes of mercy to mankind that whoever 
earnestly, prayerfully, and with a penitent heart, searches 
them will be made by them “wise unto salvation.” 


7 Commentary on Genesis, by J. G. Murphy, LL.D., p. 12. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


31 


CHAPTER III. 


THE canon: its genuineness. 


TT OW natural the question, as we open our English Bibles : 
J..L « if the first portions of this volume were 
written more than twenty-three hundred years as 01 revealed? 
ago, and the last book nearly eighteen hundred years since, 
how strong a confidence may I place in our version, that in it 
we have, with great exactness, the revelations of the Holy 
Spirit as they were inspired and recorded by the holy men 
who received them ? ” 

The Old Testament was nearly all of it written in Hebrew. 

The portions composed during and after the original lan- 
guage of Old 

captivity of the Jews in Babylon were written Testament, 
in a dialect very similar, and called after the nations from 
whom they learned it, the Chaldee. 

The canon of the Old Testament — so called from the Greek 
word Kavc'jv, a cane, a measure, a perfect rule — as The canon, 
containing the full and divine measure of inspiration and 
perfect rule of faith and life, was completed about four 
hundred years before Christ. Ezra is supposed carefully to 
have gathered together the sacred books written before his 
day after the return from the captivity. His own record, 
and that of Nehemiah, were afterward added, and no further 
addition was made. 

Certain interesting historical books, recounting the wars of 


32 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


the Jews under the Maccabean princes between the closing 
of the canon and the times of Christ, stretching over a period 
B. C. 325 to B. C. 160, together with certain other 
books of poetry, proverbs, personal incidents, and 
improbable fables, under the title of Apocrypha, were for- 
merly bound up in the volume with the sacred canon. These 


Apocrypha. 


Value of these 
books. 


books are only of value for the light they throw 


upon this period of Jewish history, and the 
evidence, by striking contrast, in almost every respect, which 
they give of the inspiration of the other Scriptures. The 
Jews never accounted them to be a part of the holy writings, 


How they and it was left to the Roman Church, at the 

found a place 

in the Bible. council held in 1546 in Trent in Austria, com- 


posed chiefly of Italian cardinals and bishops, called together 
by the pope, to put “ for the first time the apocryphal books 
in the rank of the Scriptures of God.” 1 

There is evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, in 


Care taken of their constant reference to the law of God as 

Jewish Scrip- 
tures. contained in preceding holy writings, the public 


reading of them, and general regard for them, of the ex- 
traordinary care taken for their preservation, and for the 
purity of their transcription. 

The books of the law were placed in the tabernacle with 
the ark of the covenant, and were kept there during the jour- 
neys in the wilderness, and afterward in the Land of Promise. 2 
To the same sanctuary were the various historical, poetical, 
and prophetical books consigned. On the erection of the 


1 The Canon of Scripture, by Gaussen, p. 454. 

2 Deut. xxxi, 9, 26; 1 Sam. x, 25; 2 Kings xxii, 8 ; Isa. xxxiv, 16. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


33 


temple Solomon deposited in it these sacred treasures, and 
enriched them by inspired productions from his own pen. 
What became of the sacred books when the tem- 

Bible in Baby- 

pie was destroyed we are not informed, but in lon- 
Babylon Daniel speaks of the book of the law as familiar to 
him, and also of the prophets. 3 

Jewish writers, like Philo, the Alexandrine Jew, bom 
thirty years before Christ, and Josephus, in 

' \ V ’ Philo and Jo- 

Christ’s time, unite in declaring the general cor- 8ephus * 

rectness of the text in their day ; and we may readily believe, 

after admitting the inspiration of the volume, Reason to ex- 
pect its pres- 

that the Providence of the same Divine Spirit ervation. 
that supervised its records and gave its revelations would 
secure its preservation. 

Additional grounds of confidence are found in the fact 
that about the time of the close of the canon „ 

Samaritan 

(B. C. 400) a copy of the five books of Moses Pentateuch - 
was made in the Samaritan dialect, for that singular people, a 
mixture of Hebrews and Chaldeans, gathered in that portion 
of the land of Israel called Samaria in Christ’s times, during 
the captivity. These sacred writings this people (who kept 
up their separate life and their enmity for the Jewish people, 
an enmity which was as earnestly returned by them) as care- 
fully preserved as their Hebrew neighbors did their copies. 
In A. D. 1623 a full copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch was 
obtained from a body of this nation in Damascus by De 
Saucy, the French embassador at Constantinople. Other 
copies have since been obtained from the East, and the text 

3 Daniel ix, 2, 11. 

3 


34 


THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 


of the two versions have been carefully compared, showing a 
remarkable correspondence. 

About three hundred years before Christ, through the 


Macedonian invasion of Syria and Persia by 
Alexander the Great, the Greek language and 


The Greek 
language. 


literature were spread over these countries. Alexander 
built a renowned city, bearing his name, upon the Medi- 
terranean in Egypt. During the wars resulting in the 

Chaldean captivity many of the Jews had re- 

Jews in Egypt. 

moved to Egypt ; more followed under the per- 
secutions of Antiochus, the successor of Alexander in the 
government of Syria. Ptolemy, and his successors who 
bore his name, into whose hands Egypt fell upon the great 
conqueror’s death, were generous in their treatment of their 
Jewish subjects, and encouraged their emigration to the 
ancient land of their former bondage. They had a temple 
in Leontopolis similar to the temple at Jerusalem, and fol- 
lowed the Mosaic order in their worship. These Jews all 
used the Greek language. About the year two hundred 
and eighty before Christ, for the benefit of these Hellen- 
istic or Grecian Jews at Alexandria, or at the suggestion 
of Demetrius Phalerius, librarian of the world-renowned 
royal library at Alexandria, a Greek version of the Hebrew 


Bible was made. This was called the Septua- 
gint, that is, Seventy, from the tradition that 


The Septua- 
gint. 


seventy persons were employed in its execution. Many 
unreliable fables are related of its origin. The translators 
may have been appointed by the Sanhedrim, or Council 
f Seventy, at Jerusalem, or their work may have been 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 


35 


authenticated by the council consisting of the same number 
at Alexandria. 

This version is a very free and not always exact translation 
of the Hebrew Scriptures, but is interesting and important as 
the most ancient version of the entire Old Testament, and as 
made by learned Jews at a period long before 

J l & V al u e of this 

the date of the oldest existing Hebrew manu- versl0n - 
scripts, and before the Christian era. However widely Jews 
and Christians now differ from each other in their views of 
the Messiah, both receive as the word of their common Lord 
and Master this embodied and completed canon of ancient 
Scripture. 

But still more interesting and important is the fact that it 
was this version of the Old Testament which This version 

used by our 

was used by our Lord and his apostles, and Lord - 
from which they made the many hundred quotations to be 
found throughout the pages of the New Testament. This 
version renders valuable service in the establishment of the 
correctness of the present text, and in the elucidation of the 
meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures. 

Having passed the supervision of the Son of God, and 
having been given afresh by him to the world as the Scrip- 
tures of truth, and affirmed to be full of disclosures of him- 
self and his kingdom, 4 the question as to whether we have 
the whole revelation of God, and with a good degree of cor- 
rectness, as to the Old Testament, is most satisfactorily an- 
swered. The books in this version are the same found in our 
English Bibles. 


4 John v, 39; Luke xxiv, 27, 44. 


36 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Since the death of Christ the noted Rabbinical schools in 
Palestine and in the further East, and Jewish 

Rabbinical 

schools. scholars of various nations, have united with 
Christians in seeking to perpetuate pure copies of these ven- 
erable Scriptures, which contain the foundations of their 
common faith. 

For the benefit of Christians who had fled to the East in 

the persecutions that followed the death of Christ, a version 

The Syriac or of the Old and New Testaments in the first cen- 
Peshito ver- 
sion. tury was made in the ancient Syriac or Aramaic 

dialect, the tongue generally spoken by the Jews in Palestine 

in the days of our Lord, and which he himself used. This 

version is called the Peshito. An ancient tradition, which is 

considered at least to be probable, says that this version was 

made by translators who were evidently Jewish Christians, 

and who were sent from the city of Edesa, in Persia, by the 

apostle Jude, at the instance of King Abgarus. This version 

is of great critical value. Several ancient Arabic versions 

and the Persian version of the Gospels were made from it. 

There were several Latin versions of the Bible made from 

the Septuagint, the most valuable of which was called the 

Italic, made, it is believed, in the first century 

from Alexandrian manuscripts. This version 

was highly esteemed by Augustine, who died in the year of 

our Lord four hundred and thirty. 

Origen was one of the most learned, as he was the most 

famous, of the early fathers. He was born in 

Alexandria A. D. one hundred and eighty-five. 

He wrote voluminous commentaries upon all the books of 


Italic version. 


Origen and 
his version. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


37 


Scripture; but his great work was the thorough revision 
which he made of the Septuagint. He collated it with the 
original Hebrew, and as many Greek and other versions as 
he could secure. He spent twenty-eight years upon this 
work, and traveled throughout the East collecting materials 
for it. This vast work, which consisted of six parallel ver- 
sions, and of some books eight, extended to fifty volumes; 
only portions of it, however, were transcribed, and have been 
preserved, while the main work perished. The result of his 
studies in correcting the Septuagint were not entirely lost. 

Jerome, the most learned of the early European fathers, was 
born in the province of Dalmatia, now in the em- 

Jerome. 

pire of modem Austria, A. D. 346. He studied at 
Rome, and in the German city Treves. Afterward for four 
years he devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures in a 
cell near the city of Antioch in Asia Minor. Here he ac- 
quired that skill in the Hebrew language which he turned to 
so good account. At this time the. manuscript copies of the 
Latin versions of the Bible had become very corrupt through 
omissions and additions, notes and comments being often 
given as a portion of the sacred text. Jerome was highly 
esteemed for his scholarship and saintly character by Dam- 
asus, Bishop of Rome, and at his request was induced to 
undertake a new version of the Bible in Latin, then the pre- 
vailing language of the Western or European Church. He 
availed himself of the labors of Origen, and of all the early 
Eastern versions of the Scriptures. Being dissatisfied with the 
Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible he made a new ver- 
sion from the Hebrew text. This version surpasses all former 


38 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


ones in the care with which it is executed, and in its gen- 
eral correctness. This is the famous Yulgate ver- 

The Yulgate. 

sion, (so called because in common use,) still hnal 
authority in the Roman Church. It was completed about 
A. D. 390, but was very slowly and reluctantly allowed to dis- 
place other editions in use in the Churches. It was not until 
Generally in- the time of Pope Gregory I., in the seventh cen- 
century7 enth tury, that it met with general acceptance. Its 
often transcription exposed its text to constant variations, and 
from time to time new revisions were made. The first book 

Vulgate first P^ded was a C0 Py °f the Yulgate at Mentz, called 
printed book. ^ a ]yp azar i n Bible,” about A. D. 1455, copies of 

which are still extant. In 1546 the Council of Trent ordained 
that this edition should be “ esteemed authentic, and that no 
Declared in- one should dare to reject it under anv pretense 
of e xre°nt nci1 whatever.” In fact they declared this version to 
be an inspired book, with no errors in it, although at the same 
time they tried to correct some of the errors in it. 6 

Pope Sixtus Y, in 1590, ordered a revised edition to be 
issued, corrected himself the proofs, and declared it to be of 
perpetual authority ; but there were so many errors in it that 
„ . . . his successor caused the whole edition to be can- 

Edition of 

Pope Sixtus. ce i e( p The work was again undertaken under 
Clement YIII., and completed in 1592. This is the author- 
itative edition from which the Roman Catholic copies of the 
_ Scriptures in Latin are printed. It is not al- 

Cleraentine x 1 

lowed to be criticised, and is called the Clemen- 
tine edition. 


Manuscript notes of Prof. Shedd’s Seminary Lectures. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


39 


There were other less important early versions, such as the 
Coptic, the language spoken by the native Egyptians, the 
Ethiopian, the Gothic, the tongue of the invaders of Rome, 
Persian, Arabian, etc. ; but these that have been described 
somewhat at length will enable us to see the important serv- 
ice which early transcriptions from these versions afford in 
the criticism and interpretation of the text of our modern 
versions of the holy records. 

Before referring to this we shall consider the question of the 
authority and genuineness of the canon of the New 

The New Tes- 

Testament. As was stated in the opening chap- tament canon - 
ter, God spake first by inspired men. While the apostles lived 
and moved about among the Churches the necessity would 
not exist for a collection of the records of Christ’s inspired men 

preceded the 

life and doctrines, or of the instructions of their Scriptures, 
inspired teachers. The early Christians were permitted to 
receive the facts of the Gospel from the lips of “ eye-wit- 
nesses,” and to enjoy the discipline of the apostles them- 
selves. 

Dr. Whedon remarks, in the introduction to his Com- 

mentary upon Luke and John, that after the Gospels had 

been written, down even to the close of the second century, 

the early Church clung fondly to the oral traditions handed 

down from the Saviour’s and from apostolical lips. He 

quotes from Papias as saying : “I do not think Dr whedon 

that I derived so much benefit from books as from nmnicationT" 
i from the apos- 

the living voice of those who are still surviving. tollcal age - 
If I met with any one who had been a follower of the elders 
(the apostles and their contemporaries) I made it a point 


40 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


to inquire wliat were the declarations of the elders, and 
what was said by Andrew, Peter, or Philip; what by 
Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any of the disciples of 
our Lord.” The quotation shows both that sacred manu- 
scripts were then in existence, and also that their personal 
traditions from the lips of the apostles corresponded with 
them and confirmed them. In a day when books could only 
be multiplied by the painful process of copying letter for 
letter, we can readily see how precious these personal oral 
discourses must have been. It would appear probable that 
at an early day many persons made records of such incidents 
and discourses of our Lord as came to their hear- 

Many records 

made. ing, for Luke says in the introduction to his 

Gospel: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth 

in order a declaration of those things which are most surely 

believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, 

which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers 

of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect 

understanding of all things from the very first , to write,” etc. 

ah these reo- The fact that all these other written records were 
ords disap- 
peared. allowed to perish, and are never referred to or 

quoted by early Christian writers, is a very significant evi- 
dence of the different estimation in which the four evan- 
gelical records were held, and of the satisfactory character 
of the writings that have been thus divinely preserved 
amid the general loss of all other histories of these amazing 
facts. 

The Gospels were universally admitted in the early Church 
to have been written by the persons whose names they bear. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


41 


Matthew, who remained in Jerusalem, wrote his Gospel first, 
primarily for the benefit of the Hebrew Chris- Matthew 

x J wrote for the 

tians that remained through all the persecutions tians Sh Chns " 
in Judea. He is thought by some to have been related to 
the apostle James, sometimes called the head of the Church 
in Jerusalem, 6 and a similarity is pointed out between Mat- 
thew’s record of the Sermon upon the Mount and the Epistle 
of James. He brings out before his Jewish readers with 
great distinctness the Messiahship of Jesus, his true kingly 
character, and his office as sent to the lost Presentg the 
sheep of the house of Israel. From James, who and' kindly 

character of 

was, after the flesh, a kinsman of the Lord, he Chrlst ‘ 
may have learned “ the mystery of that birth, the genealogy 
of inheritance which heirs of the house of David treasured 
up, the visit of the wise men, the flight into Egypt. How 
such a record met the cravings of human hearts we may 
judge from the hold which the history of the nativity has in 
all ages had upqn countless thousands of loving and child- 
like hearts.” 7 

“ The Gospel of St. Matthew,” says Alford, “ is that one to 
which we owe, more than to any other, our complete idea of 
our blessed Lord as the promised Messiah, the holy one of 
God, the king and head over all to his Church. In the vivid 
depictions of St. Mark we have ever his personal image before 
us, and the very sound of his voice ; in the careful and pre- 
cious collections of St. Luke we see him as the Saviour of 
our race, the head and root of our humanity ; while it is from 
this first and best known of the Gospels that the image of 
6 Christ and Christendom, pp. 53-56. 7 Ibid. 


42 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


him especially arises, which is so much in the thoughts and 
hearts of all of us who believe — that chosen One, in whom 
center all the ways and works of God ; perfect in majesty, 
perfect in mercy; the king’s son, for whom is made the 
great marriage of heaven and earth ; the bridegroom, into 
whose feast the wise and virgin souls shall enter ; the king 
himself, who shall come to take account of his own servants ; 
nay, who shall come, and all the holy angels with him, and 
sit on the throne of his glory, with all the nations before him, 
and allot to every one his eternal doom.” • 

John, surnamed Mark, was the nephew of Barnabas. 9 His 
mother, the sister of Paul’s first companion in mis- 

Mark. 

sionary labors, 10 must have been an early disciple, 
and her house in Jerusalem the resort, perhaps, of Christ 
and the apostles. Certainly Peter made a home there. 11 The 
written un- old tradition is strongly confirmed that he wrote 

der sanction 

of Peter. his Gospel under the guidance of the apostle 

Peter. He was with this apostle when he wrote his epistles 

to the Churches. 12 In the Second Epistle Peter intimates 

that he had taken measures to enable the Asiatic Churches 

Peter seems to “have in remembrance” that the incidents 
to promise a 

Gospel. which they had heard about the Lord Jesus 

Christ from his lips were not “ cunningly-devised fables.” 13 
Probably in this he referred to the fact that his son Marcus, 
as he affectionately calls him, was recording from his lips the 
incidents in sacred history that had passed under his eye. 
Of his Gospel, Plumptre remarks, “There are, as has been 

8 IIow to Study the New Testament, p. 77. 9 Acts iv, 86. 10 Acts xiii, 2. 

» » Acts xii, 12. 121 Peter v, 13. 1 3 2 Peter i, 15, 1 6. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


43 


often noticed, vivid pictorial touches which speak of knowl- 
edge such as belongs to an eye-witness: The Evidently 

written by an 

scene oi the ‘ green grass ’ in Bethsaida, and the eye-witness, 
groups in which the multitude arranged themselves by 
hundreds and fifties ; the dashing of the waves in the ship 
while our Lord was sleeping on the boat’s cushion in the 
stern; the smaller craft that accompanied the ship of the 
disciples ; the touches of personal knowledge in the history 
of the demoniac who plucked asunder his chains and ground 
his fetters together till they were broken ; of the woman with 
the issue of blood, who had suffered many things of many 
physicians, and had spent all that she had ; 14 of the glance 
and gesture with which the Lord looked round in anger at 
the hardness of men’s hearts, or in pity and yearning love 
upon the rich young ruler, or in approving welcome to 
the disciples whom he claimed as his true kindred; the 
special notice of the strange apparition in Gethsemane of 
the young man with the linen cloth cast around his naked 
body ; 16 these are but a few of the long list of details of like 
nature.” 

Mark’s Gospel is not eminently one adapted for the He- 
brews like Matthew’s, nor for the Gentiles as was Adapted to 

Jew andGen- 

Luke’s, but belonged equally to both, as Peter tile, 
was at once an apostle to the circumcision, and was chosen to 
open the door of faith to the Gentile world. 16 

Luke, the “beloved physician” 1 '' and companion 

Luke. 

of Paul, is supposed to have written the two treat- 

i* Mark iv, 36, 88; v, 25, 26; vi, 39, 40. 16 Mark iii, 5; x, 21 ; iii, 34. 

16 Christ and Christendom, p. 49. 17 Colossians iv, 14. 


44 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


ises bearing his name under the eye of the apostle to the 
Gentiles. Luke is supposed to have been a resident of An- 
tioch, and to have become acquainted with Paul in this 

city . 18 This city became the center of the Gen- 

Antioch. 

tile Church, as Jerusalem was of the Church of 
the circumcision. “The prominence given to the arrival 
there of the men of wider thoughts who left Jerusalem after the 
death of Stephen, and then of the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, 
who took the bold step of preaching to the heathen, and then 
of Barnabas and Saul, the stress laid on the new name of 
Christian, as originating there, and on the liberality of that 
Church to the poor at Jerusalem ; the list of prophets con- 
spicuous there ; but, with the exception of Paul and Barnabas, 
not otherwise memorable , 19 are all indications of the writer’s 
residence in Antioch between the time of St. Paul’s conver- 
sion and his first missionary journey. And if so, then we are 

The sources able to trace, with hardly a shadow of uncer- 
of Luke’s Gos- 

i>ei. tainty, the channels through which he may have 

obtained most of the materials of his narrative. Those that 
fled from Jerusalem on the persecution must have included 
some of the personal disciples of Christ . 20 The fullness with 
which all facts connected with the personal history of Herod 
Antipas are told is accounted for when we remember that 
one of the chief teachers at. Antioch was Manaen, the foster 


18 “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.” Thus wrote St. 
Paul from his prison at Borne to the Colossians. “ Demas hath forsaken me 
having loved this present world. . . . Only Luke is with me.” Thus he wrote 
some years after when ho was now ready to he offered up, and the time of his 
departure was at hand, to his son Timotheus . — Bean Alford. 

19 Acts xiii, 1. 20 Acts xxi, 16. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


45 


brother of the tetrarch ; that the wife of Herod’s steward had 
been one of the faithful women who followed our Lord 
through his ministrations. The clew thus obtained leads us, 
I believe, yet farther. 1. One of the most distinctive features 
of the Gospel of St. Luke is the full collection of parables 
and narratives, belonging all of them to one and 
the same journey, the last journey through Persea Luke ‘ 
toward Jerusalem. In Peraea was one of the strongholds of 
Antipas. If there were those in his court who were avow- 
edly or in heart disciples of the Nazarene, this would be the 
teaching with which they would come most in contact, and 
be most anxious to preserve. 2. Hardly less characteristic is 
the special fullness and the marked Hebrew stamp of his nar- 
rative of the nativity. Was he incorporating a Hebrew 
record with his own ? and if so, where did that 

Account # of 

come from? on whose testimony did it rest? thenatlvlt y- 
why was it preserved ? Friendship with Herod’s foster- 
brother and the wife of Herod’s steward would lead to some 
knowledge of the other members of the devout circle of 
women whom St. Luke names so conspicuously, 21 of the 
mother of James and John, of Mary of Magdala, of those 
sisters of Bethany whom he is the first to mention. 22 But in 
that group there had once been one around whom they must 
have gathered with the love of daughters, and all but the 
reverential awe of worshipers. They had known the mother 
of the- Lord. Some of them must have lived for years in 
closest contact with her. They would treasure up every 
record of that marvelous history which she , had kept and 

22 Luke x, 38-42. 


2i Luke yiii, 2, 3. 


46 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


pondered in lier heart. From them and through them, with 
no doubtful or deteriorating transmission, from her may 
have come that which we may call the true Gospel of the 
infancy.” 23 

John outlived all the apostles, and is recorded to have ac- 
knowledged publicly the authority of the first three 

John. 

Gospels, and to have added his own to complete 
them. In the same way, though less directly, he is supposed 
to have attested the book of Acts. 24 “As there were rea- 
sons,” Plumptre remarks in his lectures, from which we have 
already quoted, “personal, it may be, which prevented the 
record of the raising of Lazarus from being made known till 
Early Gospels he himself had died or had left Jerusalem, so, as 

reserved on 

some points. long as the apostle remained there, in filial con- 
secration of his life to the care of his Lord’s mother, the 
records that were current in the Churches of Palestine were 
probably in harmony with that reserve, and are represented 
by what reflects directly and indirectly the teaching of the 
apostles of the circumcision, modified in the case of Luke by 
his association with St. Paul and with the prophets of An- 
tioch, and in that of St. Mark by his fellowship with both 
St. Peter and St. Paul, the substance, that is, of the first three 
Gospels. But when the changes of his life carried the fisher- 
man of Bethsaida to the Asiatic Churches he found the way 
Ueied had prepared for him by the labors of the apostle of 
Gospel ? 1 hls the Gentiles. The Gospel, communicated at Je- 
rusalem privately, and to a few, had been preached in its 

23 Christ and Christendom, pp. 64, 68. 

24 Wordsworth on the Canon, pp. 156, 160. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


47 


fullness to those to whom that apostle had not shrunk (mani- 
festly contrasting himself with other teachers who did shrink) 
from ‘ proclaiming the whole counsel of God to whom he 
had spoken of the blood shed upon the cross as the blood of 
God ; 26 who had heard, in the utterance of prophets, that 
God, or Christ as the Son of God, had been manifest in the 
flesh ; 26 that in him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 27 
Side by side with this preparation for the truth there were 
strange caricatures and denials of it. Some denied that the 
Christ had come in the flesh 28 others that Jesus 

False views of 

was the Christ, 29 or that he was indeed the Son Christ « 
of God, 30 or that they had any fellowship with him, and 
through him with the Father. For them the Christ was a 
Jewish teacher only, or all true personality was lost in dreams 
and words. Here, then, was that which called for something 
more than the Church already had — for the witness, which 
none could bear so well as the disciple whom Jesus loved, to 
the reality of his Lord’s human nature, his affection, his 
weariness, his tears — to what had been his own 

John presents 

teaching as to himself and his relation to his Fa- the true ldea ' 
ther, when that teaching reached its highest point and re- 
vealed the full glory of the truth. It might seem at first 
that the tie of a divine adoption, which brought together St. 
John and the mother of the Lord, would have led him to 
give with a rich and overflowing fullness a record W hy he says 

nothing of the 

of the facts of the nativity, instead of leaving it nativity, 
in a profound silence; yet the very omission is, I believe, 

25 Acts xx, 2$. 26 1 Tim. iii, 16. 27 Col. i, 19. 

2(3 1 John iv, 3. 29 1 John ii, 22. 80 1 John iv, 15. 


48 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


significant and instructive. The record of all that Christians 
needed as to that history was current already in the Church. 
In the very depths of his sympathy and reverence for the 
virgin mother his spirit would grow like hers, who ‘kept all 
these things, and pondered them in her heart.’ A Church in 
which that history occupies in men’s minds a position out of 
proportion to that which is assigned to it in the Gospel 
record, is on its way to Mariolatry. With an anticipation, 
conscious or unconscious, of the dangers of a time to come, 
John ^ gives St. John, leaving others to give the “ pure milk ” 
Gospei? f the which was needed for the life of spiritual child- 
hood, himself supplies the “ strong meat,” the solid food of 
thought, meeting the wants of those who are of full age — the 
cravings of man’s heart and reason. If he names the mother 
of the Lord, whom he had known so well, it is to indicate in 
what entire independence of her control and guidance he had 
manifested his kingdom, 81 not as exalted to a throne left 
vacant in the heavens, a title wonderful and majestic, but as 
a mother, lonely and bereaved, needing the protection which 
it had been his duty and joy to give.” 

Dr. Barnes, in his course of lectures upon the “ Evidences 
of Christianity,” remarking upon the humble origin, ns com- 
pared with the influence of their writings, of the inspired 
authors, refers to the Apostle John as an illustration, and 
goes on to say : “ He was a fisherman on the Lake of Tiberias 
when Jesus first saw him and called him to the work of an 
apostle. We have his Gospel, and we have his book of 
‘Revelation,’ and, bearing in remembrance that he was a 
si John ii, 4. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


49 


fisherman , we are to ask, What would fishermen taken from 

the banks of the Delaware, from Marblehead and Literature of 

St. John the 

Gloucester, or from the Banks of Newfoundland, fisherman, 
be likely to produce if called to compose a book on the 
subject of John’s Gospel or the Book of Revelation ?” Dr. 
Barnes proceeds to quote from a discourse of Dr. Dwight, in 
which the same thought is eloquently developed: “The 
apostle John was bom in an age when the philosophy of his 
country was a mere mass of quibbling, its religion a com- 
pound of pride and bigotry, and its worship a ceremonious 
parade. His lineage, his circumstances, and his employment 
were those of a fisherman. On what natural principle can it 
be accounted for that, like the sun breaking out of an 
evening cloud, this plain man, in these circumstances, should 
at an advanced age burst upon mankind with a flood of 
effulgence and glory ? Whence did it arise that in purity of 
precept, discernment of truth, and an acquaintance with the 
moral character of man and the attributes of his Maker, this 
peasant leaves Socrates, Plato, and Cicero out of sight and 
out of remembrance ? Do you question the truth of this 
representation ? The proof is at hand and complete. There 
is not a child of fifteen who, if possessed of the common 
education of this land, would not disdain to worship their 
gods or to embrace their religion. But Bacon and Boyle, 
Butler and Berkeley, Newton and Locke, Addison and John- 
son, Jones and Horsley, have submissively embraced the 
religion of St. John, and worshiped the God whose character 
he has unfolded. Their systems have long since gone to the 

grave of oblivion. His has been animated with increasing 

4 


50 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


vigor to the present hour, and will live and flourish through 
endless ages. Their writings have not made one man vir- 
tuous. His have peopled heaven with the children of light. 
The seventeenth chapter of his Gospel, written as it is with 
the simplicity of a child, in grandeur of conception and 
in splendor of moral excellence triumphs with inexpressible 
glory over all the efforts of human genius, and looks down 
from heaven on the proudest labors of infidelity.” 32 

There are thirteen of the epistles of Paul which bear his 
Paul and his name * His companions, Christian ministers, were 
his amanuenses, or witnessed his writing these 
letters. 33 His epistles were sent to the Churches by private 
messengers. 34 Nine of them were addressed to public bodies, 
and he commanded them to be openly read. 

Peter, in his epistle, bears witness to the fact that they 
Peter hears wcre accounted as inspired Scriptures, 35 and read 
to S theh™ 0 ^ with those of the Old Testament. Indeed, when 

spired au- 
thority. Peter wrote his epistles, all the epistles of Paul 

had been written, and are, therefore, referred to under this 
title of Scriptures, a term only applied by the Jews to in- 
spired writings. “The conclusion, therefore, is, that these 
epistles are Paul’s, (whose name they bear,) and that they 
have what Paul claimed for them, and what the early Church 
ascribed to them, inspired, and therefore canonical, authority. 
They are not the words which man teaches ; they are the 
words of the Holy Ghost.” 


32 Quoted in Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century, p. 259. 
33 1 Thess. i, 1 ; 2 Thess. i, 1 ; Rom. xvi, 22. 

34 Romans xvi, 1. se 2 Peter iii, 15, 16. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


51 


The apostle who survived the others, the beloved John, died 
at the close of the first century. Within the period of a hu- 
man life after his death Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, in Asia 
Minor, about A. D. 120, and Irenseus, born about A. D. 140, 
and who died at the beginning; of the next cen- 

Papias and 

tury, professing to record the testimony of the Irenasus - 
generation before them, refer to the Gospels as we have them, 
as “the words or oracles of the Lord.” 36 Irenseus was bishop 
of the first Christian Church at Lyons in Gaul, now France. 
He wrote a great work against the errorists of the day, and 
quoted from the Gospels, as admitted by all to be final 
authority. He quotes about four hundred passages from 
them. He also quoted from all the epistles, except Philemon 
and Hebrews, of which Dr. Lardner, in his work upon the 
“ Credibility of the Scriptures,” gives eighteen examples. 
Irenseus, 37 in his youth, sat at the feet of the aged Polycarp, 

36 Christ and Christendom, by E. H. Plumptre, p. 41. 

37 Westcott remarks in his “ History of the Canon of the New Testament,” 
“It is almost impossible for any one whose ideas of communication are suggested 
by the railway and the printing-press to understand how far mere material 
hinderances must have prevented a speedy and unanimous settlement of the 
canon. The means of intercourse were slow and precarious. The multiplica- 
tion of manuscripts in remote provinces was tedious and costly. The common 
meeting-point of Christians was destroyed by the fall of Jerusalem, and from 
that time national Churches grew up around their separate centers, enjoying in 
a great measure the freedom of individual development, and exhibiting, often 
in exaggerated forms, peculiar tendencies of doctrine or ritual. As a natural 
consequence, the circulation of different parts of the New Testament for awhile 
depended more or less on their supposed connection with specific forms of 
Christianity.” After illustrating this statement, he goes on to say, “From the 
close of the second century the history of the canon is simple, and its proof is 
clear. It is allowed even by those who have reduced the genuine apostolic 
works to the narrowest limits, that from the time of Irenseus the New Testa- 
ment was composed essentially of the same books which we receive at present 


52 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


a disciple of the apostle John. In a letter he thus most 

irenseus a affectingly alludes to his acquaintance with this 
disciple of 

Polycarp. pupil of the apostles : “I can recall the very 
place where Polycarp used to sit and teach, his manner of 
speech, his mode of life, his appearance, the style of his 
address to the people, his frequent reference to St. John and 
to others who had seen our Lord ; how he used to repeat 
from memory their discourses which he had heard from them 
concerning our Lord, his miracles and mode of teaching, and 
how, being instructed himself by those who were eye-wit- 
nesses of the Word, there was in all that he said a strict 
agreement w r ith the Scriptures.” 88 What more interesting 
or satisfactory confirmation could we have than the testimony 
of this eminent Christian minister, but one generation re- 
moved from the apostles, of the estimation, as a divine 
record, in which our Scriptures of the New Testament were 
held? 

The learned, and eloquent Tertullian, who lived at Carthage 

at the close of the second century, makes constant 

Tertullian. 

quotations from the Gospels. He says : “We 
lay this down for a certain truth, that the evangelic Scrip- 
tures have for their authors the apostles, to whom the work 
of publishing the Gospel was committed by the Lord him- 


and that they were regarded with the same reverence as is now shown to them.” 
This able scholar then shows, by an exhaustive examination of such writings of 
the apostolical fathers as still exist, that from the age of the apostles themselves 
to this period of absolute certainty we have the most assuring testimony, aris- 
ing out of constant quotations, that the present books of the New Testament 
came from the hands of the apostles of Christ. 

38 « When were our Gospels written ?” Constantine Tischendorf, p. 77. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 53 

self. Among the apostles John and Matthew teach us faith, 
among the apostolical men Luke and Mark re- His testimony 
fresh it.” 39 He speaks with equal respect and and Epistles ! 8 
positiveness of the epistles : “ If you be willing to exercise 
your curiosity profitably in the business of your salvation 
visit the apostolical Churches, in which the very chairs of 
the apostles still preside ; in which their very authentic 
letters are recited, sounding forth the voice, and representing 
the countenance, of each one of them. Is Achaia near 
you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Mace- 
donia, you have Philippi, you have Thessalonica. If you 
can go to Asia you have Ephesus ; but if you are near 
to Italy you have Rome, from whence we may also be easily 
satisfied.” 40 

Justin Martyr, who was bom not long after the death of 
the apostles, A. D. 130, and was acquainted with 

Justin Martyr. 

their immediate disciples, speaks often in his 
writings of the Gospels as of unquestioned authority, under 
the title of Memoirs of Christ, and says that the “ apostles 
composed them.” He also refers to the Acts, to nearly all 
the epistles, and to the Revelation. He also declares that it 
was a general practice to read the Gospels “ at Speaks of use 
public worship in Christian assemblies every lemblies? as 
Lord's day,” and to discourse upon them. “We come to- 
gether,” he says, “ to recollect the divine Scriptures. We 
nourish our faith, raise our hope, confirm our trust by the 
sacred word.” 41 


S9 Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures, by Professor M’Lelland, p. 56. 
40 Ibid. 41 Canon and Interpretation, p. 58. 


54 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 




Some time between the first and second century the old 
Syriac version of the Bible, heretofore referred to, which has 
come down to us in a sound condition, was 

The. Syriac 

version. made. 42 The most ancient copies of it lacked 

Second Peter, Second and Third John, and probably James; 
but with these exceptions it contains all the sacred writings 
found in the canonical Scriptures, and no other books. The 
old Italic versions were made in the same period. 

The Italic. 

These contain all the books of our collection. 

When we come down to the third century we meet the 
testimony of that unequaled scholar and most faithful stu- 


42 Of this version Westcott remarks it “is assigned almost universally to the 
most remote Christian antiquity. ... If a conjecture may be allowed, I think 
that the various facts of the case are adequately explained by supposing that 
versions of separate books of the New Testament were first made and used in 
Palestine, perhaps within the apostolic age, and that shortly afterward these 
were collected, revised, and completed at Edessa. Many circumstances com- 
bine to give support to this belief. The early condition of the Syrian Church, 
its wide extent, and active vigor, lead us to expect that a version of the Holy 
Scriptures into the common dialect could not have been long deferred ; and the 
existence of an Aramaic Gospel (Matthew) was in itself likely to suggest the 
work. Differences of style, no less than the very nature of the case, point to 
separate translations of different hooks, and at the same time a certain general 
uniformity of character bespeaks some subsequent revision. I have ventured 
to specify the place at which I believe that this revision was made. Whatever 
may be thought of the alleged intercourse of Abgarus, king of Edessa, with our 
Lord, Edessa itself is signalized in early Church history by many remarkable 
facts. It was called the ‘ holy 1 and the 1 blessed ’ city ; its inhabitants were 
said to have been brought over by Thaddeus in a marvelous manner to the 
Christian faith, ‘and from that time forth’ Eusebius adds, ‘the whole people of 
Edessa has continued to be devoted to the name of Christ, exhibiting no ordi- 
nary instance of the goodness of our Saviour.’ In the second century it became 
the center of an important Christian school, and long afterward retained its 
pre-eminence among the cities of its province.”— A General Survey of the 
History of the Oman of the Kew Testament. By Brooke Foss Westcott, 
B. D., p. 206. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


55 


dent of the Scriptures for a lifetime, Origen, A. D. 230. 
He says of the Gospels, as we now accept them, origen on the 

New Testa- 

“ They are received without dispute by the ™ent. 
whole Church of God under heaven.” In another place he 
says, “ Matthew sounds first with his priestly trumpet in his 
Gospel ; Mark also, and Luke and John, sounded with their 
priestly trumpets. Peter likewise sounds aloud with the two 
trumpets of his epistles, James also, and Jude ; and John 
sounds again with his trumpet in his epistles and the Reve- 
lation, and Luke also, once more relating the actions of the 
apostles. Last of all (in his list of books) comes Paul, 
and, sounding with the trumpet of his fourteen epistles, 
he threw down to the foundations the walls of Jericho, 
and all the engines of idolatry, and the schemes of the 
philosophers.” 43 

About the year A. D. 300 a learned, wealthy, and Chris- 
tian minister and book collector named Pam- 

Pamphilus. 

philus gathered every scrap of Christian litera- 
ture upon which he could lay his hands, and upon his death 
he gave this invaluable library to the Church at Caesarea in 
Palestine, where he lived, to be used by Eusebius, his pastor, 
during his life. He was inflamed with so great a love for 
sacred literature that he copied with his own hand the chief 
part of the works of Origen. His library is frequently men- 
tioned by ancient writers. Jerome found the works of Origen 
in this library. Out of this large and rare ma- 

Eusebius. 

terial Eusebius wrote his history of the Church 
during the preceding centuries, and authenticates the in- 
43 Canon and Interpretation, p. 55. 


56 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Constantine 
the Great. 


spired books which had been in use from the beginning. 
He includes all found in our present canon, and no others. 
Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor, who was the 
contemporary of the Bishop of Caesarea, and 
was an eager and delighted reader of the New 
Testament, was accustomed to read every day a portion of 
Scripture to his household, and to offer prayer. He wrote to 
Eusebius to supervise the preparation for him of fifty copies 
Fift^ Greek the en 5re Greek Scriptures, and ordered two 
Scnptures^ 16 government wagons, under the special charge of 
sebms. a d eacon 0 f the Church at Caesarea, to transport 

them when completed to Constantinople. These manu- 
scripts, which Eusebius caused to be executed promptly and 
with great pleasure, the empeior gave to the principal 
Churches to be read in the public worship. They were also 
transcribed for the use of other Churches. To this source, 
probably, we owe all our best manuscripts of the Greek Tes- 
tament, the Alexandrian, the Vatican, the Ephraim, and the 
Sinaitic, discovered by Tischendorf. 44 

Jerome in the same century, (A. D. 322,) with all the 
authorities of previous generations under his eye, prepared 
his well-known Vulgate edition of the Bible, 
which remains to this day as it came from his 
hand, save the introduction of the apocryphal books by the 
Council of Trent. 

Some books During the early centuries a few of the books 
of New Tcs* 

lament held of the New Testament, such as the Epistles of 

h while in sus- 

Dense. James, Second Peter, and Second and Third John, 

44 Origin and History of the Books of the Bible. By C. E. Stowe, D. D.,p. 55. 


Jerome. 


THE WORD OF GOT) OPENED. 


57 


and the Revelation, were for a time held in doubt ; but after 

careful examination were received into the canon. The very 

hesitation shown both confirms the genuineness of Hesitation an 

evidence of 

these books (tor they were only received after canonicity. 
careful examination) and increases our confidence in the di- 
vine authority of the others. None were received without 
unqualified apostolical origin. Certain works attributed to 
the early fathers were sometimes found connected Apocyphrai 

. . . New Testa- 

with the inspired manuscripts, as the so-called ment. 

“ Epistle of Barnabas ” and a part of the “ Pastor of Hermas ” 
were found united with the Sinaitic manuscript of the Scrip- 
tures which Tischendorf found in the convent of Mount 
Sinai. These writings have never been received by any 
number of persons as inspired, and are of value only on ac- 
count of their early Christian origin. In the latter case they 
show the age of the manuscript with which they use of these 
were bound, proving it to be one of the oldest wrltmgs ‘ 
copies of the Septuagint, as having been made as early at 
least as the first half of the fourth century ; and by the con- 
trast of their contents they show the unapproachable author- 
ity, simplicity, and truth of the divine oracles as gathered 
into the present canon. The editor of the “ Journal of 
Sacred Literature,” B. H. Cooper, has just prepared an edi- 
tion of the apocryphal Gospels. He says in his introduc- 
tion, “ Before I undertook this w'ork I never realized so 
completely the impassable character of the gulf which sep- 
arates the genuine Gospels from these.” They originated 
long after the true Gospels were written, in the second or 
third century. They consist of idle and unfounded tradi- 


58 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


tions relating to the infancy, youth, and early manhood of 
our Lord, about which the word of God is silent. They are 
below contempt. Sacred scholars, from Irenaeus down, have 
denounced them. 45 

The first manuscript version of the whole Bible in the 
English language was made by John Wiclif A. D. 1380. 
First English Its circulation was limited by the great labor 

manuscript of . 

the Bible. and expense of transcribmg it, as the art of 
printing had not yet begun to realize the Pentecostal miracle 
of tongues, but it was an engine of wonderful power. It was 
the first morning light ushering in the full day of the 
Reformation. 

The first printed copy of any portion of the Scriptures in 
edition of n the ^he English tongue was published by William 
giish. ln En Tyndale about the beginning of the sixteenth 
century. Unable, through persecution, to accomplish this 
work at home he went to Germany, and there made his 


version, not from the Latin Vulgate, as his pred- 
ecessors had done, but from the original Greek 


William Tyn- 
dale. 


and Hebrew. He issued first the New Testament and after- 
ward the Pentateuch. About the commencement of the 

45 “It is of the utmost importance,” says "Westcott, “to remember that the 
canon was never referred in the first ages to the authority of fathers or councils. 
The appeal was made not to the judgment of men, but to that of Churches, and 
of those particularly which were most nearly interested in the genuineness of 
separate writings. And thus it is found that while all the canonical books are 
supported by the concurrent testimony of all, or at least of many, Churches, no 
more than isolated opinions of private men can be brought forward in support 
of the authority of any other writings, for the New Testament Apocrypha can 
hold a place by the side of the apostolic books only so long as our view is lim- 
ited to a narrow range. A comprehensive survey of their general relations shows 
the real interval by which they are separated .” — Canon of N. T., p. 443. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


59 


year 1535 he was beguiled from the city of Antwerp, where 
he had found protection, by an English emissary of the 
Roman Church, and was seized and imprisoned in the castle 
of Vilvorde, near the city of Brussels. After a wearisome 
imprisonment, and vain efforts to secure the interposition 
of the English court, on the 6th of October, 

Burning of 

1536, he was led forth to be burned. His last T y ndale - 
words, “ uttered with fervent zeal and in a loud voice, were 
these : £ Lord, open the Icing of England's eyes!' ” 

For ten years he had been an exile from his home, suffer- 
ing in a foreign land, from poverty and persecution, distresses 
that only the Christian faith can enable a man to endure, and 
finally gave his body to be burned, that he might bestow 
upon all speaking his native tongue the pure written word 
of God. Such a result, however, was worth all it cost : he 
“ received his reward.” “ His occupation in this earth,” 
says Froude, “ was gone. His eyes saw the salvation for 
which he had longed, and he might depart to his place.” 46 

Soon after Tyndale was thrown into prison an edition of 
the entire Bible, containing the portions previously published 
by him, and probably completed from his manuscripts, was 

commenced by his friend and fellow-exile, John John Rogers 

publishes his 

Rogers, and was published in 1537 under the |SSS nofthe 
assumed name of Thomas Mathew, and was hence called 
Mathew's Bible. But the editor of it claimed for his friend 
its authorship by inserting his initials in ornamental letters 
(W. T.) at the close of the Old Testament. Of the New 
Testament there could be no doubt as to its origin, as it had 

46 History of England, vol. iii, p. ST. 


60 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


long since been published. 47 The editor discloses himself by 
appending his initials (J. R.) a;t the close of a preliminary 
exhortation to the study of the Holy Scriptures. 

So great a change had been produced in influential quar- 
ters in England during these memorable years that Lord 
Cromwell, who was prime minister of England, and also 
“ vicegerent ” of King Henry VIII. in all ecclesiastical mat- 
ters, together with Archbishop Cranmer, persuaded the king, 
before the first edition of Tyndale’s Bible was exhausted, to 
obtain from Francis I., of France, permission to 

Coverdale’s 

Blble ' print an edition of the English Bible in Paris, as 

the work could be better done there than in England. 
About the time of Tyndale’s imprisonment, according to 
Froude, but two years later, according to previous authori- 
ties, Miles Coverdale, a member of the same Cambridge 
circle which had given birth to Cranmer, to Latimer, to 
Barnes, and to the Scotch Wishart, silently went abroad with 
a license from Cromwell, and, with Tyndale’s help, collected 
and edited the various books of Scripture. 48 As the Inquisi- 
tion stopped their work in Paris, Cromwell ordered his 
agents to bring the types and presses, and even the French 
printers, to England. In 1536, according to Froude, it was 
published in London, was dedicated to Henry VIII., and the 
clergy were ordered not only to permit, but to exhort and 
encourage all men to resort to it and read. “ In this act,” 
says the eloquent historian whose dates we have followed, 
“ was laid the foundation-stone on which the whole later 

47 Popular History of the English Bible, by Mrs. H. C. Conant. 

48 Fronde’s History of England, yol. iii. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


61 


history of England, civil as well as ecclesiastical, has been 
reared.” Of the effect of its publication upon the people, 
Strype, in his “Life of Cranmer,” says, it was a jubilee among 
the poor of England when, for the first time in the national 
history, they could listen from Sabbath to Sab- Effect of the 

publication of 

bath to “ the sweet and glad tidings of the the Bible - 
Gospel” without the fear of prisons, the scourge, and the 
stake. “ It was wonderful,” he says, “ to see with what joy 
this book of God was received, not only among the learneder 
sort, and those that were noted for lovers of the Reforma- 
tion, but generally all England over, among all the vulgar 
and common people, and with what greediness God’s word 
was read, and what resort to places where the reading 
of it was. Everybody that could bought the book and 
busily read it, or got others to read it to them if they could 
not themselves, and divers more elderly people learned to 
read on purpose. And even little boys flocked among the 
rest to hear portions of the Holy Scriptures read.” What a 
blessed preparation was this for the bloody persecutions that 
afterward tried their faith in God’s written word ! 

Of this version of the Bible Froude says : “ Though since 
that time it has been many times revised and altered, we 
may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are 
all familiar. The peculiar genius — if such a word may be 
permitted — which breathes through it, the mingled tender- 
ness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the pre- Froude upon 
ternatural grandeur, unequaled, unapproached in 18 veislon - 
the attempted improvements of modern scholars ; all are 
here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, William 


62 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Tyndale. Lying while engaged in that great office under the 
shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any 
moment to fall, he worked under circumstances alone, per- 
haps, truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him ; his 
spirit, as it were, divorced from the world, moved in a purer 
element than common air.” 49 

By the commencement of the next century numerous edi- 
tions of the Bible had been made. Even the Romanists, 
finding that they could not put a stop to the circulation of 
the Scriptures in the language of the people, felt 

The. Douay r & ° 1 r ’ 

edition. •£ necessar y to have a version of their own. In 

1582 they issued the New Testament at Rheims, and in 

1610 the Old Testament at Douay. This forms the famous 

Douay edition of the Bible, a fine version in some respects, 

but with its daring changes to meet the requisitions of a 

fallen Church. 

Martin Luther, the great German Reformer, who was bom 
in 1483 and died in 1546, has been called the 

Martin Luther. 

father of modem biblical interpretation, for he 
taught by precept and example that the Bible in the original 
tongues is final authority in all religious questions, and that 
private judgment, and not the decision of councils, is to be 
allowed to determine its sense. He insisted with charac- 
Father of bib- teristic earnestness upon a grammatical and 

lical interpre- 
tation. philological mode of interpretation of the lan- 

guage of Scripture, rather than bending the word of God to 
the preconceived opinions and theories of any religious 
schools. All the success that has since been secured in the 


49 Froude, vol. iii, p. S7. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


63 


investigation of the exact meaning of tlie sacred records has 
arisen from following the example which he set in this 
regard. The noblest work of this noble man was the trans- 
lation of the Scriptures into the German language. 60 The 
study of the Bible was a life-long passion with him. “Were 
I but a great poet,” he was accustomed to say, “I would 
write a magnificent poem on the utility and efficacy of the 
divine word.” “ His judgment on the different books of the 
Bible,” Westcott remarks, “ as given in detail in his prefaces, 
are so full of life, and so characteristic of the man, that they 
can never lose their interest ; and, as a w r hole, they form an 
important chapter in the history of the Bible.” 61 

The present version of the English Bible was commenced 
in 1607 and completed in 1611, although many Authorized 
small changes and improvements have been verblon ' 
made in the text in subsequent editions. It was undertaken 
in the reign of James I. upon the recommendation of Dr. 

Reynolds, an influential clergyman and bishop of Executed by 

forty-seven 

Norwich, of Puritan sympathies. By the king’s learned men - 
command forty-seven learned men entered upon the execution 
of the work. They were divided into six companies, two of 
which sat at Westminster, two at Oxford, and two at Cam- 
bridge. All previous editions, with all available manuscripts 
of original versions, were before them. They followed as 
closely as the authorities they consulted would admit, by 
command, the edition then in use, and called the “ Bishop’s 
Bible,” because Archbishop Parker had supervised its prepa- 
ration. 

60 Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopedia. 61 The Canon of the New Testament, p. 429. 


64 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Of the result of their labors the editor of the “ Annotated 
Paragraph Bible ” remarks : “ It would be too much to affirm 
that it is not susceptible of improvement; but 

Character of 

our version. * tg g enera j excellence is attested by the fact, that 
with all the diversities of opinion on religious subjects, and 
the controversies which have been carried on between differ- 
ent denominations of Christians in our country, all have 
agreed in appealing to the same version, and none have, in 
any matters of consequence, objected to it.” 

The revival of letters upon the introduction of the art of 
Effect of the printing, especially the quickening influences of 

discovery of 

printing. the Reformation and the influential example of 
Luther; the appeal from a professedly infallible Church to 
the inspired records of truth; the differences of doctrinal 
opinions in the Reformed Churches, all seeking their justifi- 
cation in the letter of Scripture ; the searching examination 
given to the mythical fables, forming the beginning of all 
profane history ; the extraordinary advances made in all the 
physical sciences, some of them apparently showing dis- 
crepancies and contradictions in the statements of the Bible ; 
altogether turned with great zeal the thoughts and studies 
of scholars, both friendly and unfriendly, to the original 
sources of the records of a divine revelation. Impelled by 
the two strongest of human passions, hatred and love, the 

Examination work has been going on until the present day. 
of the original 

sources. From ancient libraries, institutions of learning, 
rabbinical schools, and convents, gathered with the most 
persistent and patient labor, every scrap of manuscript con- 
taining the whole or portions of the various versions of the 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


65 


Bible, which we have already described, has been examined 
and collated; every site of the occurrence of scriptural 
incidents has been visited; human history has been re- 
viewed ; the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the sublime 
revelations of the earth’s strata have been made to yield 
up their long-hidden secrets in these extended investiga- 
tions. When this sifting: and exhausting* ex- The effect of 

this investi- 

amination of the received Scriptures com- ftfir"t. feared 
menced many good men looked upon it with anxiety, fearing 
that the popular confidence in the genuineness and purity 
of the text might be destroyed. Their fears were unfounded. 
The Bible, like pure gold, only shone the brighter after the 
fiery trial. “A wonderful divine ordination,” 

Those fears 

says Olshausen, “ has preserved it to us without unfounded - 
any essential injury through a succession of dark ages. It ex- 
erts at the present day upon all minds receptive of its spirit 
the same blessed, sanctifying influence which the apostles 
claimed for it eighteen centuries ago. How, then, can these 
sacred books suffer from careful historical inquiry respecting 
their origin ? Investigation must rather serve to confirm 
and fully establish belief in their purity and genuineness.” 62 
When the learned Professor Bengel, of Tubingen, announced 
the forty thousand various readings which had 
been obtained from the different* manuscript BengeL 
copies of the New Testament collated, it was feared at first 
that an entirely new version would be required ; but it was 
found upon examination that the sense of the authorized 
edition was scarcely altered by them all ; no previously held 

62 Olshausen’s Commentaries, vol. i, p. 80. 

5 


66 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


or contested doctrine was affected in the slightest measure, 
and only one important passage, the well-known seventh 
verse of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of 

No doctrine 

affected. John, relating to the three witnesses, was found 
to be sustained by so few original versions as to be marked 
unreliable. But the doctrine of the triune personality of 
God is not affected by the loss of this proof-text. Upon the 
result of these careful collations of original authorities 
Olshausen remarks: “Now that all the manuscripts have 
been read and accurately collated, there is no 

No further J ’ 

fear. further occasion for fear that somewhere or other 

something new may be discovered which will thrust the old, 

loved Bible aside.” 53 Some of these “ various readings,” 

considered of the most value, have been introduced into side 

columns in our reference Bibles, and sometimes, although 

rarely, they shed considerable light upon the text. 

Of the fifty thousand various readings which at the 

The nature of present time have been collected, the most of 
these varia- 
tions. them are simply differences in orthography, 

punctuation, or a change in a particle, as and for also ; and 

in the tenses, numbers, and cases of the words. Says Prof. 

Norton, in his work upon the genuineness of the Gospels : 

“ It seems strange that the text of Shakspeare, which has 

Prof. Norton been in existence less than two hundred and 

upon the va- 

SJJ?” read ' fifty years, should be far more uncertain and 
corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen 
centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only 
in manuscript. The industry of collators and commentators 


63 Olshausen’s Commentaries, vol. i, p. SO. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


67 


indeed has collected a formidable array of ‘ various read- 
ings ’ in the Greek text of the Scriptures, but the number of 
those which have any good claim to be received, and which 
also seriously affect the sense, is so small that they may 
almost be counted upon the fingers. With perhaps a dozen 
or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New 
Testament may be said to be so far settled by the general 
consent of scholars that any dispute as to its meaning must 
relate rather to the interpretation of the words than to any 
doubts respecting the words themselves. But in every one 
of Shakspeare’s thirty-seven plays there are probably a 
hundred readings still in dispute, a large proportion of which 
materially affect the meaning of the passage in which they 
occur.” 

We may, then, answer the question with confidence, that 
we have in our English Bibles the revelation 

Question an- 

of God’s will as it was given to the holy men swered - 
that received it. 


68 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


CHAPTER IV. 

interpretation: general observations. 


mtlE term hermeneutics , from the Greek word used by 
T the apostle Paul, and translated the “ interpretation of 
tongues,” 1 is the title used to designate the 

Hermeneutics. 

science or art of interpretation. 

The grand office of biblical interpretation is to discover 

Office of bib- the exact teaching of the Holy Spirit in the 
lical interpre- 
tation. words uttered by inspired men. It is not its 

province to inquire how far any preconceived opinion finds 

justification in the Scriptures of truth, but simply and always 

“ what the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.” 2 

There are many peculiarities in the construction and char- 

Pecuiiarities ac ^ er °f the book which render its interpretation 

dering Us In- difficult, and require the closest and most careful 

terpretation 

difficult. study. Its first publication in the idioms of 
tongues foreign to our own — its constant allusion to customs 
unfamiliar to our days — its singular varieties of style, histori- 
cal, poetical, prophetical — its sublime supernatural revelations 
of truth and spiritual life — all together make it a volume 
which study can never exhaust, and which it can never enter 
upon without the most enriching results. 3 


1 1 Cor. xii, 10. 2 \ p e t er i, 11. 

3 Dr. Stowe remarks in his inaugural address upon the “ Interpretation of the 
Scriptures,” when he entered upon his duties as a professor at Andover: “We 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


69 


It one should ask why a book that contains truths so vital 
to our present and eternal well-being has not _ 

° Why has God 

been given to man in a style so clear and simple Keso' diffi- 

,, , ,. . _ , , cult of com- 

tnat an ordinary mind could comprehend it upon prehension ? 
the bare reading, and why it should be given to him as an 

have scarcely anything in common with them (the Jewish people) except a 
common humanity, and the same Deity; a common depravity, and the need of 
the same method of salvation ; and it is precisely because we have these most 
important things in common with them that the Bible on these topics is so 
plain and intelligible to the humble, believing, prayerful inquirer. We have 
the same sun and moon and stars, and yet we can hardly be said to have the 
same heavens over our heads or the same earth beneath our feet, so different 
were their skies and fields and forests from ours. Instead of being like them 
in habits of life and modes of thought, our inner and outer life is as wholly 
unlike that of the ancient Hebrews as a modern cotton factory is unlike 
Solomon's temple, and the difference is very much of the same kind. In 
the application of science and art, for example, to the uses and conven- 
iences of life they were infinitely behind us. In contrast with our nu- 
merous facilities for journeying and transportation, the Hebrews knew 
nothing of a road (1 Sam. xxvii, 10) as we understand the word road; 
they had no idea of any such thing as a bridge, and there is but one 
instance in the whole Hebrew history of so great a convenience as a ferry- 
boat, and that was in the latter part of the reign of their greatest king, and is 
alluded to as a luxury for the king’s household, (2 Sam. xix, IS.) The distaff 
for spinning and the loom worked by hand were all the machinery they had 
for manufacturing cloth ; of sugar and coffee and tea they had never heard ; hair 
combs and pocket knives, and even pockets, were quite unknown to them ; 
wheelbarrows and threshing machines, (their wheat was trodden out by oxen, 
or beaten out by sticks,) steam-engines and carding machines and nail factories 
they had never formed an idea of; paper and quills, steel pens and wafers, they 
had never used ; and instead of our stereotype plates and power presses, striking 
off a whole Bible in two minutes, they had no way of making books but by a 
process which for facility and speed of writing was very much like engraving 
on copperplate, or cutting letters on a tombstone. Their very language and 
their mode of using language was in almost everything the reverse of ours. 
Their primitive words are verbs instead of nouns ; they gave names to actions 
before they gave names to things ; their books begin where ours end, and when 
we read their writings we always seem to ourselves to be reading backward. 
They wrote consonants only, and had no use for vowels. What we express 


70 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


unexplored mine, with its hidden veins of gold and silver, 
long eluding the sight of the seeker after truth ? the answer 
need not be, reverently, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed 
good in thy sight,” alone ; but other reasons at once suggest 
themselves to the thoughtful mind. The Bible was intended 
intended to to be a study for man for all time. It reveals 
ail ages. God. Every new discovery of the meaning and 
force of revelation is a fresh revelation of some aspect of the 
divine character. The necessity of constant study holds 
every generation in close connection with the divine mind, 
and becomes the medium through which God constantly 
communes with our race. 

A wonderful analogy we notice here between the revela- 
tions of God in the natural world and in his Scriptures. 

God has made all life a discipline. All our per- 

Analogy with 

human life. SO nal wants can only be supplied by labor and 
care and thought, and even faith, a process which, although 
it is wearisome, is wholesome, for it is the great school in 
which God develops and trains human minds. What is in- 
What is vital dispensable to life lies near to us ; but its com- 
ceaied. escon ’ forts and luxuries are to be sought for as hidden 
treasures. Every year man is discovering by study some new 
element in the divine economy which will add to his enjoy- 
ment. How many years the world lived without a knowl- 

directly by a simple noun, they often designate by a picture ; as for example, 
the pupil of the eye, because it always reflects a little image of the person 
looking into it, they call it the little man , the eye's daughter. They loved to 
give utterance to their thoughts in symbols and in types, in allegories and 
parables and riddles, and all their literature abounds with expedients of this 
kind .” — Bibliotheca Sacra , 1SE3, p. 46. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


71 


edge of the hidden powers of electricity and steam, and how 
long men have walked over mines of gold and silver, and 
near mountains of coal and rivers of oil, and sailed over the 
most precious pearls ! And the world is not yet exhausted, 
neither will it be until it is refined in its final fires. 4 Thus is 
it with the Scriptures. Sufficient relating to the 

r & This is true of 

salvation of the soul to lead a penitent man to the Seriptures. 

forgiveness and to the door of heaven can be found in all 
parts of Scripture, and he that runneth may read. If every 
portion of the Bible should be lost but the fifteenth chapter 
of St. Luke, and the third chapter of St. John, we should still 
have the whole plan of salvation — the love of God, the atone- 
ment of Christ, the repenting sinner, and the changed heart ; 
but beyond this there are still undiscovered continents of 
truth, facilities for the sanctification of human life, treasures 
of unutterable price hidden away in the stores of revelation, 
not to mock the earnest seeker, but to reward his zeal and 
add to his spiritual wealth. The prayer offered p rayer 0 f 

a thousand years ago still lingers upon devout David. 


4 Says the author of Ecce Deus, “ God’s first book, the book of nature, apparently 
leaves much of life unprovided for ; yet as men acquire skill to turn over the 
ponderous pages they find that every want has been anticipated. Adam would 
hardly know the world of which he was the first occupant, yet the primal 
forces and characteristics of nature are just the same as when he kept the gar- 
den of Eden. Modern civilization can hardly understand how men could sub- 
sist in ancient times, yet the earth abideth forever without appendix or sup- 
plement. What was wanting was the faculty of interpretation. Men saw tho 
water, but could not interpret it into steam ; they saw the lightning, but mis- 
took it for an enemy ; they saw the sun, but could not fully interpret all he 
signified by the eloquence of light. The human power of interpretation grows, 
yet after it has grown it often forgets both the process and the fact The vol- 
ume of nature is precisely to-day as God published it, but the latter readers aro 
more sharp-sighted and inquisitive than the former.” — Page 24. 


72 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


lips: “Open tliou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous 
things out of thy law.” 5 

Dr. Schaff, remarking upon the New Testament and its lan- 
guage, says that the latter is the Macedonian Greek as spoken 
by the Jews of the dispersion in the time of Christ, and adds : 
“ The most beautiful language of heathendom and the ven- 
erable language of the Jews are here combined, baptized with 
Dr. Schaff on the spirit of Christianity, and made the picture 

language and 

the BMe. ° f of silver for the golden apple -of the eternal truth 
of the Gospel. And, indeed, the style of the Bible in general 
is singularly adapted to men of every class and grade of 
culture, affording the child the simple nourishment for its 
religious wants, and the profoundest thinker inexhaustible 
matter of study. The Bible is not simply a popular book, 
but a book of all nations, and for all societies, classes, and 
conditions of men.” 6 

Locke has well said : “ Men have reason to be well satisfied 
Locke upon with what God has done for them, since he has 

this feature of 

dmne econ- g[ ven whatever is necessary for convenience of 
life and information of virtue, and has put within their reach, 
if they are willing to make search — to which, however, he 
will not compel them — a comfortable provision for this life, 
and the way that leads to a better. We shall not have much 
need to complain of the narrowness of our minds if we will 
employ them about what may be of use to us ; and it will be 
an unpardonable as well as childish peevishness if we under- 
value the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve 
it because there are some things that are set out of its reach.” 

6 Psalm cxix, IS. 6 History of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 93. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


73 


“ Has not the natural world,” says Goulburn, 7 “ wondrous 

things, many and inexhaustible — wonders on a large scale, 

and wonders on a small ? First, it has beautiful Nature as ap- 
parent to the 

landscapes, which it asks no effort to admire, eye. 

which we have only to open our eyes and behold. And, 

though landscapes vary in beauty, there are perhaps fewer 

than we imagine in which a contemplative eye can discover 

nothing of the beautiful. As it is with Scripture, so it is 

with nature ; familiarity with it has a tendency to blunt our 

perceptions of its beauty. It does not follow from hence 

that the portions of nature which lie in our immediate 

vicinity contain no wonders. Wonders there may be in 

abundance, but they only reveal themselves to those who are 

at the pains of investigating them. As the rich wonders hid- 
den under 

man lazily rolls along in his carnage, and indo- ° ur feet, 
lently complains of the tameness of the landscape, there may 
be wondrous things in the geological strata beneath his feet : 
fossil animals ; evidences of volcanic agency. There may be 
gold dust in the streams ; nay, as at Cracow, it may happen 
that in the earth’s bowels there shall be lofty vaulted palaces 
of rock salt, which appear by the light of flambeaux like so 
many crystals, or precious stones of various colors, casting a 
luster which the eye can scarcely bear. A slight amount of 
research and exertion would reach and discover these things, 
and would turn a residence in an otherwise tame country 
into a perpetual feast of cuiiosity. Then there Wonder8 of 
are the wonders to which the telescope opens the telescope - 
our eyes. It reveals to us worlds lit up by a common lamp 

7 Devotional Study of the Scriptures, page 47. 


74 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


with our own, several of them larger than our earth ; and 
numbers of flaming balls scattered in brilliant profusion over 
the midnight sky, which, perchance, serve as suns of other 
systems. The astronomer will patiently watch for hours, ex- 
posed to the night-dews and the cold, to ascertain the truth 
in regard to some phenomenon of the heavens. There are the 
wonders of no less marvelous wonders of the microscope. By 

the micro- 
scope. this is revealed to us a plurality of worlds in the 

most contracted limits, as the telescope had revealed to us a 

plurality in the vast reaches of space. All this admits of a 

close application to the Scriptures. The only difference is that 

These iiius- the wondrous things of God’s law are greater 

trations ap- ° 

ture. t0 Scrlp ’ and more marvelous by far than anything which 
meets us in his works, for we are told that he has magnified 
his word above all his name, that is, above everything con- 
nected with him. Scripture has its more interesting and less 
interesting districts as they appear upon the surface. It has 
its sublime chapters upon the creation, its unequaled psalms, 
and its soul-moving parables. It has, also, its less imposing 
surfaces, its flats and levels, its apparent wastes. It has its 
long genealogical chapters, with no biographical sketches to 
enlighten them. It has its protracted ceremonial details, 
and it has its tangled brushwood and wild jungles in the 
perplexities which some of the prophetical writings seem to 
present, and which perhaps are never designed to be wholly 
cleared. It does not follow that these less interesting pas- 
Rich mines sages contain nothing beneath the surface worthv 

beneath the J 

surface. 0 f research, and which will abundantly repay 

investigation. The richest mines have been found beneath the 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


75 


most sterile and desolate tracts of earth. Every part of 
Scripture contains some lesson that subserves a useful pur- 
pose in the system of divine grace. They may lie hidden very 
deeply with the design of exciting curiosity and research. 
‘ It is the glory of God to conceal a thing ; but the honor of 
kings is to search out a matter.’ ” 

Who does not see at once that this great variety, and often 

difficulty, and sometimes mystery, add to the Add to at- 

, tractiveness 

attractiveness of Scripture, and occasion the of scripture. 

necessity for that study and thought, without which its 

truths would avail us but little ? An ordinary author is soon 

exhausted, and loses his power over us; but the Bible never, 

if thoughtfully read. 8 Without mental exertion a man may 

8 Abundant testimony of the power of the Scriptures to reward with 
the highest form of intellectual and spiritual enjoyment their careful and 
protracted study might be given. At a late Bible anniversary Eev. Dr. 
Peabody, preacher and pastor at Harvard College, remarked : “ I rejoice 
that we have a record of revelation that demands study, and a life-long 
study. It is one of the marks of the divine inspiration which fills this 
book, that its study demands, and crowns, and exceeds a life-time. If 1 
had my life to live over again, I would be willing to devote the solid 
portion of my days to the study of St. Paul’s Epistles. I should feel that 
in these alone there is work enough and joy enough for a life-long scholar- 
ship.” And he adds, “ Let it not be forgotten, that as the sweetest pastures 
are found among the rocks, so among those crags and cliffs in which is 
the hiding of the divine wisdom, among the least intelligible portions of the 
divine word, are found scattered those sweet and precious sentences on which 
the devout feed, and which have been the greatest of boons to generation after 
generation of the saints. One of the surest tokens to my mind of the divine 
inspiration of this book is the fact that strewn all over it are those passages of 
concentrated, condensed power, in which the sacred writers put into half a 
dozen words what would be weakly expressed in half a dozen pages or chapters.” 

“ Where is the uninspired book,” writes the late venerable Dr. William 
Marsh, “of which one can say, ‘I never tire of reading it?’ There is a book 
which I think I must have read fifty times, and I have not done with it yet. 
In a sense, I doubt whether I shall have done with it in time, for it is iu eter- 


76 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


admire Scripture, even as without bodily exertion he may 
admire nature. If, however, he would profit by 

Man must ex- ’ 

btf able to' use nature’s resources, he must exert himself, dig- 
the resources 

of nature. gi n g the well, felling the timber, building the 

house, sinking the mine ; so he must operate upon the crude 

material of Scripture, and look into its secret recesses with 

the energy and perseverance that he puts forth to meet his 

illustration of bodily wants. In the Old Testament we read 
truth hidden 

in Scripture. what seems to be only a merciful provision 
for a patient burden-bearing beast: “Thou shalt not muz- 

nity we shall know fully its wondrous contents.” The eminent Dr. Constan- 
tine Tischendorf, still blessing the Church with his untiring labors, has 
employed all his erudition, and all his time for more than twenty years, upon 
the textual study of the New Testament. When he discovered, after extraor- 
dinary endurance and perseverance, the ancient manuscript of the New Testa- 
ment, some one thousand five hundred years old, in the convent of Mount 
Sinai, he hurried to his chamber, that, as he said, “ he might give way to the 
transports of joy which he felt.” “ I knew that I held in my hand,” he adds, 
“ the most precious biblical treasure in existence ; a document whose age and 
importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever examined 
during twenty years' study of the subject. I cannot now, I confess, recall all 
the emotions which I felt in that exciting moment with such a diamond in my 
possession. Though my lamp was dim, and the night cold, I sat down at onco 
to transcribe the ‘ Epistle of Barnabas,’ ” which was bound up with this editiou 
of the New Testament, and of invaluable service in the argument demonstra- 
ting the genuineness and authenticity of our present New Testament canon. 
Honors from crowned heads and ancient universities, and even from Pius IX. 
himself, fell thickly upon him when his great work of publishing a fac-similo 
of the manuscripts was completed. But he mentions with undisguised pride 
his greater satisfaction with the remark of an old man, “ himself of the high- 
est distinction for learning :” “ I would rather have discovered this Sinaitic 
manuscript than the koh-i-noor of the queen of England.” How noble his 
remark : “ That which I think more highly of than all these flattering distinc- 
tions is the conviction that Providence has given to our age, in which attacks 
on Christianity are so common, the Sinaitic Bible, to be to us a full and clear 
light as to what is the word written by God, and to assist us in defending the 
truth by establishing its authentio form.” 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


77 


zle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.” * This 
truth it certainly teaches, but within its folds we are 
taught by an inspired apostle is wrapped up an eternal 
principle of equity — that “the laborer is worthy of his 
reward.” 10 

The Bible constantly presents general principles, absolute 
commandments, and living examples ; but it never applies 
these principles to human actions as recorded upon its pages. 
This is left to the enlightened conscience and 

Man must ap- 

thoughtful judgment of the reader. It is His plyprinciples * 
will that we should meditate upon all Scripture, and make 
ourselves their moral application. The Bible records the 
pious obedience and simple and singular faith of Noah, but 
makes no comment upon it; and it relates the Illustrat i 0nof 

«... . -i -i • fact and char- 

stoiy ot his shame when overcome by his appe- acter without 

application of 

tite, without a note of warning. Abraham is moral - 
sometimes called the friend of God, and is styled in Scripture 
the “ father of them that believe.” His marvelous simplicity 
of character and unfaltering trust in God are fully described 
in the sacred word, and, without note or comment or excuse, 
the stories of his deceit are also written out. God’s abhor- 
rence of Jacob’s falsehood is not stated in the sacred narra- 
tive, neither his judgment as to a plurality of wives, it is left 
to be gathered from the after-fortunes of the patriarch, the 
retributions that fell upon him in his fears of Esau, and in 
his overwhelming domestic troubles. It was only in his 
later years that his life was gilded with gleams of comfort. 11 
David is said, without reservation, to be a “ man after God’s 

9 Deuteronomy xxv, 4. 10 1 Timothy v, 18. 11 Goulburn. 


78 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Judas. 


own heart 12 but what frightful sins the hand of inspiration, 
without hesitation, records against him. God 

David and his 

sins- leaves the strange extremes of his life for us to 

reconcile. Not one word of apology does he offer. David in 
Scripture is not presented as a saint, not even when judged 
by the defective standard of the times in which he lived. 
As compared with Saul, who refused to carry out God’s com- 
mands, he was a chosen, faithful, and successful instrument ; 
in this respect simply he w T as after God’s heart. His sins 
were shocking, and the temporal retribution that followed 
fearful. His humility, his penitence, and his trust were as 
marvelous as his human weaknesses. In recording the end 
of Judas, where a human writer could hardly have 
failed to remark upon the added guilt of suicide 
and the steps which led to it, the reader is left to draw his 
own lessons as to the awful risk of sinning against high 
privileges, and constantly violating the convictions of con- 
science. 

All these lessons require thought and study to elicit. 

The distinction between simple attention to the literal 
. . .. word of inspiration and careful thought and 

Distinction r ® 

tention 11 and study upon the truth which the Holy Spirit 

thought illus- 
trated. seeks to teach us by it has been happily illustrated 

by Dr. Goulbum. Attention to any book or discourse is that 
which serves, and which is necessary to enable us to retain 
the various points it sets forth in our memory. For example, 
we read the beautiful narrative of the Syrophcenician moth- 
er’s appeal to our Lord in behalf of her daughter. Attention, 

12 1 Sam. xiii, 14. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


79 


exercised while that story is read, will enable us to answer 

the following questions : Where was our Lord when this 

event happened ? (It is said he was in the coasts of Tyre 

and Sidon.) Of what plague did the woman entreat our 

Lord to make her daughter whole ? (It is said she was 

grievously vexed with a devil.) How did he at first receive 

her petition ? (He answered her not a word.) How did the 

disciples beg him to act ? (They besought him, saying, Send 

her away, for she crieth after us.) Suppose some one has 

read the narrative, or has heard it read in such a manner 

that, being afterward asked the above questions, he has 

been able to answer them all correctly, that person has 

exercised attention, and this is well ; but it is not a profiting 

by the Scriptures ; it is only an essential process preliminary 

to the profiting by them. The knowledge of the points of the 

story, which is secured by attention, is precisely the sort of 

knowledge with which we aim at filling the Failure in Sun- 
day-school in- 

minds of children in our Sunday-schools. And struction. 
it is to be feared that we are too apt to plume ourselves on 
the large stock of this sort of knowledge which a child of 
average intelligence will in a short time acquire. We forget 
that except as an essential preliminary to a far deeper and 
more important process, the knowledge of scriptural facts is 
absolutely worth nothing. 

Let us now consider what thought is, as distinct from 
attention. 

A lower form of thought, which might operate upon the 
difficulties of the narrative, might awaken a speculative in- 
terest. Thus it might occur to one’s mind that at this period 


80 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


our Lord is represented as being out of the limits of Palestine , 
(in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon,) and that at 

Speculative 

thought. the same time there were other scriptural consid- 
erations leading us to believe that he never was out of those 
limits, the Lord being a minister to the circumcision, and 
sent only to the “ lost sheep of the house of Israel;” we might 
seek the solution of the difficulty by inquiring whether the 
words might not be interpreted as meaning only the borders 
of Tyre and Sidon, (a district immediately adjoining this 
Gentile country.) This would be a form of speculative 
thought, which forms largely the field of inquiry among 
critical commentaries. 

But there is a higher form of thought requisite to secure 
our obtaining: from the Holy Scriptures that 

Devotional * 

thought. nourishment which we need. It brings into 

exercise not the speculative faculty, nor curiosity in any 
form or shape, but those moral faculties which the hum- 
blest mind has in common with the philosopher — the heart, 
the conscience, and the will. Devotional or practical thought 
will ask, Why did our Lord, so full of tenderness and com- 
passion, who seems to have traveled into this far comer of 
Palestine for the sole purpose of giving this woman an op- 
portunity of access to him, meet her with perfect silence, in 
the first instance, and in the second with the discouragement 
of rough, hard words ? Why ? but because he designs to 
teach me that if he does not immediately answer my prayers 
on the first application it is not that he does not hear them ; 
it is to draw me on by apparent denial to greater earnestness 
and importunity in prayer, and to impress upon my heart 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


81 


this lesson of lessons, that even if after earnest prayer things 
seem to go wrong, and my wishes seem to be thwarted, he 
has still a heart of love toward me beneath this disguise of 
stern severity. 

“ Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 

But trust him for his grace ; 

Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face.” 

I understand now the meaning of the severe cross which I 
sometimes meet when I have earnestly devoted Meaning of 

discourage- 

myself to God’s service. Providence seemed to ments. 
be thwarting me and discouraging me when engaged in 
prosecuting my religious duties; but this Scripture, as the 
voice of the Master, speaks to me and says, “ Persevere ; pray 
oftener and more earnestly ; never abandon the narrow path 
of duty, however many discouragements are in it, and it shall 
be unto thee according to thy faith.” And so, through the 
patience and comfort of the Scriptures, I have hope. 

Thus we see how devotional thought discovers in the 
revealed word the verv marrow of the Gospel, Devotional 

J thought finds 

and makes it to be the food and comfort of the the Gospel ° f 
soul. 

I. It is of importance that the Bible should be studied in 

order to be properly interpreted as a whole or a The whole Bi- 
ble to be stud- 

Unit. It contains but one revelation, and like a led. 
perfect body, every member has some vital relation to the 
whole frame. Christ is revealed in it from the commence- 
ment to the close. He comes first in promise, then in the 

ceremonial law, always in providential history, now in the 

6 


82 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


strains of holy hymns, now in the glowing numbers of proph- 
ecy, at the appointed time is made manifest in 

Christ in the 

whole Bible. flesh, and is then held forth to the close 

of the canon as the expected triumphant King coming in the 
clouds of heaven . 13 The custom of spending so long a period 

1 3 As an illustration of the manner in which the whole revelation may he 
made to pour its light upon one truth, we append the response of two teachers 
at a late normal convention to the question as to the manner of showing the 
connection between the Passover and Christ’s great sacrifice for sin : “ C. I think I 
should call the attention of the class first to Genesis iv, 3-5, ‘And Cain brought of 
the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of 
the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto 
Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.’ 
And I should tell my class that here was proof that a Lamb of God was chosen 
from the foundation of tho world, since here a lamb is revealed as the only 
acceptable offering for sin ; and that this lamb was a type of Christ. I should 
then ask them to turn to Genesis xxii, 7, where we find in Abraham’s offering 
of his son Isaac the wonderful connection between the lamb and a human body, 
foreshadowing again, with almost the distinctness of the very substance itself, 
the offering of Jesus. And when Abraham answers to Isaac’s question, ‘My 
son, God will provide himself a lamb,’ I should ask, ‘ O, I wonder if Abraham 
knew the full meaning of his own reply, and whether he believed that God 
would provide for himself a lamb, or provide himself for a lamb ? 1 Then 
again in Exodus xxiii, 18, God calls this paschal lamb ‘ my sacrifice ’ — the sacri- 
fice chosen of God, and God chosen for a sacrifice. Then I should refer them to 
John i, 29, in connection with Genesis xxii, 7, ‘My son, God will provide him- 
self a lamb,’ and * Behold the Lamb of God ! ’ In his first epistle, i, 19, Peter 
says, ‘A Lamb without blemish and without spot;’ John says, ‘the Lamb of 
God ;’ and in Isaiah liii, 7 the evangelical prophet says of Jesus, ‘ lie was brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter.’ In Exodus xii, 45 we read of the lamb that was 
prepared for the Passover, ‘ Neither shall ye break a bone thereof;’ and in John 
xix, 33, 36, ‘And when they came to Jesus they brake not his legs, that the 
Scripture might be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.’ And in Lev. 
v, 12 we read of ten thousand times ten thousand of the redeemed singing, 
‘Worthy is the Lamb that was 6lain;’ and once more, in Eevelation xv, 3, 
that ‘ they sing the song of Moses'the servant of God and the song of the Lamb.’ ” 

“ Supt . We shall only have time now to ask Brother P. what practical appli- 
cation he would make of this lesson to his scholars.” 

“ P. I think I should tell my class that the slaying of the lamb and the 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


83 


in Sunday-scliools upon the study of local portions of Scrip- 
ture to the neglect of others, and of the study of the Bible as 
a whole, destroys in the minds of the young the vital idea of 
the harmony of its parts, and depreciates the value of those 
portions of the holy record not ordinarily submitted to the 
study of a class. Why should years be spent upon the story 
of Christ in the Gospels when he is to be found in every 
portion of Holy Scripture ? 

Iu the same connection it should be remembered that there 
is a striking progress in revelation from its dawn to the last 
vision in the Apocalypse. It is a progress in nearly every 
respect in the development of God’s spiritual kingdom upon 
the earth, as to the comprehension of it by those 

Revelation 

to whom it is revealed, and as to its require- progressive, 
ments in order to secure the divine mercy. This thought 

sprinkling of the blood in the way of God’s appointment was the means God 
had provided to bring the Israelites out of their cruel bondagfe. I would en- 
deavor to show my scholars that they have sinned, and in common with the 
whole race, are under the bondage of sin, a bondage more cruel and relentless 
than that of the Israelites, and that God has provided a way of deliverance from 
this bondage ; that Christ is that way ; that his shed blood is the only means 
that God will use ; and that this blood must be applied to the heart if the de- 
stroying angel, the avenging justice of God, shall pass over that heart. I 
should try to show that it matters not what the previous condition or character 
of the inmates of the house had been if only the blood was found sprinkled on 
the doorposts, and so it matters not how greatly we havo sinned against God if 
Jesus’s blood is sprinkled on the door of our hearts wo are safe. Now how shall 
we apply this blood of Christ, and appropriate it to our own souls? Well, I 
should say that obedience to God’s command on the part of the Israelites was 
an evidence of their faith ; so, if we obey God’s command to believe on the 
sacrifice he has appointed for sin, we exercise faith in the power and efficacy of 
his blood to save us, and faith therefore appropriates the sacrifice and saves us. 
And I might say at the close that each house had to havo for itself the sign of 
blood upon it in order to salvation, so each soul must be sprinkled for itself 
with the blood of Christ or it will be eternally lost.” 


84 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


will aid the Bible student in comprehending many of the acts 
in human lives, as recorded in God’s word, which did not, at 
the time they were committed, through the darkness of the 
dispensation, destroy the sensibility of conscience, or remove 
from them the favor of God. Dr. Chalmers, referring to the in- 
Dr. Chalmers cidents of deceit, inordinate indulgence, and even 

on a progress- 

of e moraiity! d social crime in men that seemed really to enjoy 
communion with God, and some of them to he able to write 
spiritual hymns and prayers that penitent and pious men in 
all ages can adopt as the expression of their own emotions, 
remarks, that these examples, set forth in Scripture without 
reprobation, “ are fitted to stagger those who reflect not suf- 
ficiently on the incapacity of our narrow faculties with their 
limited range to pronounce on all the objects and history of 
the divine administration. Though morality in the abstract 
is unchangeable, it looks as if in the concrete there was a 
progressive morality from one era to another, an accommoda- 
tion to the ruder and earlier periods of humanity, distinctly 
intimated by our Saviour when he tells us of polygamy being 
allowed before the times of the Gospels, because of the hard- 
ness of their hearts. It is worthy of remark that there is no 
example, as far as I can recollect, of any deception or imper- 
fect morality of any sort being recorded of Christian disciples 
in the New Testament without a prompt and decided con- 
demnation, as in the case of Paul rebuking Peter for his am- 
bidextrous policy between Jews and Gentiles.” 14 

Bernard on A late writer, Bernard, in his Bampton Lec- 
progress in ' x 

tamentT Tes " tures, lias shown most convincingly the gradual 
14 Scripture Readings, vol. i, p. 21. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


85 


development of doctrines in the New Testament, from 
the revelation of the kingdom of heaven, coming without 
observation into human hearts, to the universal and triumph- 
ant kingdom over angels and men, as set forth in the book 
of Revelation ; from the moral lessons of the sermon on the 
mount to the full development of the life of faith in the 
epistles of St. Paul ; and from the penitent prodigal returning 
to the father’s house to the moral Jewish counselor, pointed 
to the crucified Messiah as the means of securing the 
new birth through the agency of the Holy Ghost. 15 This 
view of the Bible makes all inspired Scripture “profitable 
for doctrine.” 

Olshausen remarks that “ throughout Scripture there runs 
the doctrine of a deep, essential connection between the Old 
and New Testaments. As the Old Testament is Olshausen on 

unity and 

always pointing onward to the New, so the latter gcrfpture. m 
is always pointing backward to the Old as its necessary 
precedent. Consequently, both alike bear the character of a 
divine revelation; only this revelation manifests itself in a 
gradual development. In the Old Testament it appears in 
its commencement as the seed of the subsequent plant ; in 
the New Testament the living plant itself is exhibited. On 
account of this relation there cannot be any thing in the Old 
Testament specifically different from what is to be found in 
the New Testament, only the form of presenting the same 
thing is at one time more or less plain and direct than at 
another.” 15 

18 Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, by Thomas D. Bernard, M.A. 

16 Commentaries, vol. i, p. 181. 


86 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


II. In this connection it may be remarked that it is impor- 

The scope of tant to understand the scope of each book of the 
each book to 


be 


under- 


stood. Bible, the especial revelation it proposes to make, 

the main object for which it was written, or the circum- 
stances that called it forth. The best commentary upon some 
of the epistles is a knowledge of the occasion of their being 
written, and a careful reading of them through, instead of 
piecemeal by chapters, as they have been arbitrarily broken 
up for the benefit of reference. 

Mr. Locke thus recommends the perusal of a book at a 
sitting. Referring to his own experience, he says : “ I con- 
Locke’s habit eluded that it was necessary, for the understand- 

of reading a 

ting k at a Slt ' ing of any one of them, (St. Paul’s epistles,) often 
to read it all through at one sitting, and to observe, as well 
as I could, the design of his wu’iting it. If the first reading 
gave me some light, the second gave me more ; and so I 
persisted on, reading constantly the whole epistle over at 
once, till I came to have a good general view of the apostle’s 
main purpose in writing.” 

Sometimes the sacred writer states with more or less 
Sometimes definiteness his purpose, and his argument is to 
cred Ct writer be read in view of this plan. An instance is 

stated by 

himself. found in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. In the 
first three chapters he thoroughly reviews the moral condi- 
tion of Jews and Gentiles in all ages, and proves that the 
whole world is guilty before God. In the twentieth verse of 
the third chapter he states his main puipose is to show that 
“ by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his 
sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Having 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


87 


gained this, he proposes to answer the momentous question : 
“ How shall a man be just with God ? ” After a clear and 
powerful discussion of the subject through the seven verses 
that follow, in the twenty-eighth he announces the evident 
result of his reasoning : “ Therefore, we conclude that a man 
is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” This 
conclusion the apostle then proceeds to set forth and illus- 
trate in its various relations to human experience and to 
God’s previous dealings with his people. 

The best commentators are not those that are the most 
profuse in notes upon separate words, but who give the 
general scope and meaning of the sacred writers. 

The beauty 

As you rum a flower by tearing it in pieces, so leripture er de f 
our multiplied lessons upon limited portions of considering 3 ^ 

out of its con- 

Scripture tear the divine record into tatters, nectlons - 
destroy both its refreshing fragrance and its beauty, and 
really sacrifice its life and power.' 7 

17 The interest that has been awakened in the ministry and among the 
people in the exposition of the Scriptures from the pulpit is a wholesome sign 
of the times. The Biblo text is too often announced at the commencement of 
a sermon simply as a motto or a sentiment to distinguish the discourse from 
an ordinary lecture. There is no instrument placed by the Holy Spirit in the 
hands of a godly minister so powerful to save and to edify the Church as the 
Scriptures of truth. One of the ablest and most popular ministers of New 
York has crowded his church on Sabbath afternoons now for more than a year 
with expositions of the word of God in order, commencing with Genesis. No 
course can more effectually fortify the youth of the Church against the specious 
attacks upon the inspiration of the Bible now filling the literature of the age. 
Dr. M’Lelland somewhat tartly remarks : “ Nor can we approve the practice 
adopted by many preachers, of running into their pulpits with a single sentence 
or part of one, which they make their exclusive subject, not bestowing on the 
connection a word of notice, unless they have been hurried in their prepara- 
tions, and find it convenient to talk a little round it in an extempore intro- 


88 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Lessons upon the Gospels chronologically arranged have 

their purpose, but they divert the mind of the learner from a 

comprehension of the specific and important, because divine, 

Each Gospel character and object of each evangelist. Mat- 

has a charac- . 

ter of its own. thew presents the kingly side of our Lord s 

character, Mark the human, Luke the sacrificial, and John 

the divine. 18 

duction. What would we think if we heard any other book prelected on in 
this way — a treatise on medicine, for instance, or on morals? or, What would 
we think of a judge expounding in this way a legal statute ? The civil law 
has laid down an express canon on the subject, as if indignant at the idea of 
such a practice. It says, (as translated :) ‘ Bane in he to judge concerning the 
law, not having examined the entire law.’ Ministers are often heard to chide their 
people sharply for the careless and unprofitable way in which they read the 
word of God ; but they would do well to ask whether they are not themselves 
to blame in forming them to such wretched habits of perusing it. When his 
reverence appears before the people month after month without, in a single 
instance perhaps, explaining the design, coherence, and argument of a paragraph 
containing only six verses, it is really too much to expect that honest John 
will spend his Sabbath evenings in supplying the pastor’s lack of service.” 

18 Bernard, in his Bampton Lectures upon the “ Progress of Doctrine in the 
New Testament,” thus happily presents the scope of revelation in the New 
Testament : “ First, a person is manifested and facts are set forth in the sim- 
plest external aspect, under the clearest light, and with the concurrence of a 
fourfold witness. This witness also is itself progressive, and in the last Gospel 
the glory of the person has grown more bright, and the meaning of the facts 
more clear. 1 hen in the book of Acts Christ is preached as perfected, and as 
the refuge and life of the world. The results of his appearing are summed up 
and settled, and men are called to believe and be saved. Those who do so find 
themselves in new relations to each other, they become one body, and grow 
into the form and life of a catholic (or universal) Church. The state which has 
thus been entered needs to be expounded, and the life which has been begun 
needs to be educated. The apostolic letters perform the work. The questions 
which universally follow the first submissions of the mind receive their an- 
swers, and so the faith which was general grows definite. The rising exigencies 
of the new life are met, both for the man and for the Church; and we learn 
what is the happy consciousness, and what the holy conversation, which belong 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


89 


III. In interpreting Scripture we are never to forget its 
character. It is not intended to be a revelation scripture not 

. , a revelation 

of science or a model of history, or to be judged of science, 
simply as to the literature of its poetry. It proposes simply 
to reveal God’s truth to all ages of men. 

Dr. Stowe, in his interesting work upon the books of the 
Bible, remarks in a characteristically strong and perhaps 
somewhat extravagant way, “ The Bible does not Dr. Stowe on 

unscientific 

state, and never professes to state, scientific facts §§bf£ cter ° f 
in scientific forms, but only phenomena or appearances to 
the eye of a spectator. For example, that the earth revolves 
on its axis from west to east once in twenty-four hours, thus 
producing day and night, is a scientific fact ; this the Bible 
never states, nor even alludes to. Indeed, I do not suppose 
that the writers of the Bible knew anything about it, for ‘ in- 
spiration is not omniscence.’ That the sun rises in the east 
and passes along in the heavens till he sets in the west is a 
phenomenon, an appearance to the human eye, and this, and 
this only, is what the Bible speaks of, just as in the language 


to those who are in Christ Jesus. Lastly, as members of the body of Christ, 
we find ourselves partakers in a corporate life and a history larger than our 
own. We feel that we are taken up into a scheme of things which is in conflict 
with the present, and which cannot realize itself here. Therefore, our final 
teaching is by prophecy, which shows us, not how we are personally saved and 
victorious, but how the battle goes upon the whole, and which issues in the 
appearance of a holy city, in which redemption reaches its end, and the 
Redeemer finds his joy; in which human tendencies are realized, and divine 
promises fulfilled ; in which the ideal has become the actual, and man is per- 
fected in the presence and glory of God. . . . Only the written word of God, 
confidingly followed in the progressive steps of its advance, can lead the 
weakest or the wisest into the deep blessedness of the life that is in Christ, 
and into the final glory of the city of God.” 


90 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


of common life and common sense every-where, both among 
the learned and unlearned. While the statements of the 
Bible are true to the phenomena, the appearances, they are 
right ; they have nothing to do with scientific facts, and can- 
not come into collision with them any more than the decis- 
ions of a judge in the supreme court can come in collision 
with the governor’s coach, for the two subjects are not of the 
same kind, they belong to two entirely different spheres of 
thought ; they do not travel at all in the same road, and 

Folly of inter- how can they come in collision ? To inter- 
preting the 

8is S as°a treat- P re ^ ^ ie chapter of Genesis as a geological 

ise upon geol- „ . 

ogy. essay, and to attempt to remove from it, by scien- 

tific methods, geological difficulties, seems to me like inter- 
preting the parable of the sower as an agricultural essay, and 
attempting to avoid the difficulty that the fowls of the air 
devoured only the seed that fell by the way side, by learned 
inquiries as to whether birds in ancient times could fly over 
fences, and whether they were not obliged to keep the road, 
and solemnly imagining the sustaining of the latter supposi- 
tion to be essential to the vindication of the truthfulness of 
Christ as a religious teacher. How much better to look at 
the simple fact just as it existed, to wit, that in the Eastern 
countries, as now in Germany and France, the farms w T ere 
seldom fenced, and the fields for the most part were guarded 
by old men, women, and children, whose duty it was to keep 
away the birds as well as the cattle ; and this practice very 
generally obtains in those countries at the present day, simply 
because that there old men, women, and children are cheaper 
than fencing stuff. In the interpretation of so plain and 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


91 


homely a book as the Bible a knowledge of the facts and 

good common sense are generally much better common sense 
. an interpreter 

guides than scientific ingenuity or metaphysical of the Bible, 
subtilty. The Bible was not written with reference to 
science or jihilosophy, but with reference to the feelings, im- 
pressions, and needs of the great masses of mankind, and 
they are neither scientific men nor philosophers.” 19 

No Christian student need have anxiety lest any revelation 
in the natural world will ever contradict the Bible. What- 
ever discoveries are made in chronology as to the duration of 

man’s previous residence upon earth, as to the True science 

cannot harm 

origin of species, or in the hidden strata of the the Bib,e - 
earth, the Christian scholar may patiently await their full 
development. They may be thrust forward in the interest of 
unbelief ; but it will ever be in the future as in the past, that 
the revelations of all the sciences as they come to be fully 
understood will entirely accord with the tenor and spirit of 
God’s word. The Bible is no nearer being an obsolete book 
than it was when the earth was supposed to be the center of 
the universe, and the whole celestial system was thought to 
have been created in exactly six days. 

IY. The fact must not be overlooked that the Holy Scrip- 
tures are unsystematic. They contain no “body of divinity,” 
and no connected catechism, with questions and answers. The 
attributes of God are gathered as they are dis- , _ , 
closed in his providential government over his scientlfic - 
people, or in various revelations through different inspired 
men, and in different forms. The doctrines of the Gospel 
19 Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, page 29. 


92 


THE WPRD OF GOD OPENED. 


relating to sin and human salvation are presented without 
order all over the sacred pages. One view will be presented 
at one time — as the love of God and the welcome with which 
he receives the penitent — and the indispensableness of the 
Different new birth at another. At one time Paul sets 

truths taught 

times dlfferent forth the vital character of faith, without which 
it is impossible to please God, and the helplessness of one 
who hopes to save himself simply by good works : while 
James, in view of a condition of things then existing in the 
Church, sets forth with great prominence good works as 
the only reliable human test of a correct faith. There can 
be no contradiction. All the views of all the sacred w T riters 
are true, but they need to be understood in harmony with 
each other, and must be interpreted in the light of the cir- 

4 

cumstances under which they were written. Goulburn 
Gouibum’s ii- remarks, “The precept and the doctrine (in the 

lustration of 

Scriptures) are thrown out just as the occasion 
for them offers. The sacred writer does not stop to guard or 
counterbalance them ; if they need this, the counterbalancing 
precept is to be found in another inspired writing, which 
originated on a wholly different occasion. Even so in the 
field of nature we do not find a noxious herb 

Analogy in 

growing side by side w T ith its antidote; but 
noxious herbs (only noxious in certain applications, having 
their uses and services in the general system) are found in 
one locality ; in another district, whose features are different, 
springs up the medicinal plant. Man is left to discover and 
apply the counteracting power.” 

Overlooking this truth the great reformer himself, Martin 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


93 


Luther, who had fought in his own person for the doctrine 
of salvation by faith only, was disposed to throw „ 

OUt of the canon the Epistle of James as teach- tm Luther, 
ing a different Gospel, and therefore not one of the divine 
circle. Luther was right in his doctrine according to Paul, 
and so was James. There was, in truth, no collision between 
them ; but the reformer was too impatient in the stress of his 
struggle with the Roman Church to give the apostle a care- 
ful examination. Into this error those fall who affirm a finite 
and human nature only to the Son of God, and E„. or 0 f R a . 

tionalists and 

quote the words of Jesus himself to prove it; Universaiists. 
who insist that repentance without faith in the atonement is 
all that is requisite to secure the favor of God, and quote the 
parable of the prodigal son ; and those also who predicate 
the final salvation of all upon the revealed doctrine of the 
Fatherhood of God. Their views are certainly to be found 
in portions of the inspired word, but they are essentially 
modified without being in the least nullified by distinct 
revelations found in other portions of the Bible, and readily 
harmonized when one is willing to receive the whole counsel 
of God. These Scriptures present but different sides of the 
same truth. 

Y. Here we may remark that the interpreter should not 
consider himself responsible for what is said or JJfreSfSlsi- 

. , r. ble for what 

taught in the Scriptures. This revelation ot God says. 
God requires no apology from him. His simple office is to 
discover what the Holy Spirit teaches. It is not for him to 
soften any threatening, to modify any doctrine, to “ explain 
away ” the apparent meaning of any text, but simply to 


94 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


declare the evident sense of what “is written.” Says Dr. 

Doedes, professor of divinity in the University of Utrecht : 

“Let the New Testament teach what it teaches; and if men 

do not agree with it, let them have the courage to say so. 

Dr. Doedes on If men do not agree with it, it is because they 
the irrespon- 

terprete? Hf think that they know better. Well, be it so. 
exacuext the But let the New Testament have its own views. 
The task of the interpreter is verily not of such a nature 
that when he does his duty he need ever make himself feel 
anxious while employed upon it. But he must needs become 
anxious if he hold himself responsible for what is written 
there. This, then, however, is a cross that he lays on his 
own shoulders ; and, alas ! a source of torture to the writings 
which he has to interpret.” 20 “ Be very careful,” he says in 

another place, “ lest you make the Scriptures say what you 
would like to find in them. What have people not extracted 
from the New Testament ? that is, What have people not 
introduced into it?” We should not forget that it is the 
truth of God that saves, not our opinion of what that truth 
should be. 

VI. The earliest interpreters of Scripture, in order more 
_ . . readily to reconcile difficulties, and to combat the 

interpreters. yi ews 0 f certain errorists, held to a figurative, sym- 

bolical, double, threefold, fourfold, and manifold meaning of 
the words of the sacred record. Origen taught that the literal 
word was valueless, and that even the Scripture histories 
were allegorical ; that the six days of creation signified the 
renovation of the soul, the six days intimating that it was a 
20 Hermeneutics of the New Testament, page 59. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


95 


progressive work. Israel, in Egypt is the soul living in error, 
and the seven plagues are its purgations from various evil 
habits ; the frogs denoting loquacity, the fleas carnal appe- 
tites, the boils pride and arrogance, etc. As man is com- 
posed of body, mind, and soul, he taught that there was a 
threefold sense, the literal, the moral, and the spiritual, in 
which the truth of inspiration was to be considered. Origen, 
reading that Abraham married Keturah in his old age, and 
learning that Keturah meant in Hebrew “ sweet odor,” and 
esteeming “ sweet odor ” to be a scriptural figure of the 
fragrance of righteousness of character, taught that the true 
meaning of this passage was, that in his old age Abraham 
became eminently holy. These views, with T he Reforma . 

tion changed 

various modifications, influenced the interpre- this - 
tation of Scripture, until the morning of the Reformation 
put to flight the clouds and fogs that had settled down 
upon the word of God. But one Church, that of the 
New Jerusalem, or the Swedenborgian, at the present day 
gives countenance to such a rendering of the Scriptures. 
Such a view makes the Bible not the revelation, but the 
obscuration, of the will of God. There is a tendency 
among some teachers to seek far-fetched and fanciful inter- 
pretations, especially of the Old Testament; as when the 
six steps by which Solomon ascended to his throne are 
made to represent the six steps a sinner takes to reach 
pardon and eternal life : conviction, repentance, faith, regen- 
jration, justification, and sanctification. Upon the “instru- 
ment of ten strings ” with which the Psalmist would praise 
God, Chrysostom discourses upon the Ten Commandments, 


96 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


made delightful and easy to keep by divine grace. On the 
text, “ Whereof every one bearetli twins,” he asks, “ What 
twins ?” and answers, “ The laic and the prophets — the two 
commandments whereon hang all in the life of every be- 
liever ! ” The bread and fish and egg which the child asks of 
his father in the parable are thus explained by him : the 
bread is the soul, the fish is faith, which lives amid the 
billows of temptation, and the egg is hope, a pledge of 
something, but not the chicken itself! This is always 
reprehensible and dangerous. The custom of giving lessons 
upon the blackboard in Sunday-schools tends, although not 
necessarily, to this habit of allegorizing the Scriptures . 21 


21 Dr. Wise, in the “Sunday-School Journal” for March, 1868, makes the 
following well-deserved and appropriate criticism upon a “blackboard exercise ” 
prepared as a model for the “Sunday-School Times:” 

“ 1 How to Prepare a Blackboard Exercise for a Sunday-School 

Lesson. 


1. Learn the lesson thoroughly ; get the head, and especially the heart, full of 
it, by hard study and earnest prayer. 

2. Select the thought you wish to use. 

3. Condense that thought to the smallest and sharpest point possible. 

4. Place that point upon the board. 

5. Eemember that the thought or outline on the board is but “ dry hones 
until clothed with “ thoughts that breathe and words that burn ” from a warm 
and earnest heart. 


EXERCISE: 

Open Windows Dangerous for Sleepers.* 


The open windows. 
Ball room. 

Theater. 

Drinking Saloons. 


Acts xx, 
Place of safety. 

In Christ only. 


9-12. 

The open windoics. 
Gambling Saloons. 
Impenitence. 

Etc., etc. 


Place of safety. 
In Christ only. 


* Those sleep in open windows who do not realize the dangers to which they are exposed. 
Call upon the school to name the open windows. E, H. Y. 

Plymouth, III. 


THE WORD OF GOI) OPENED. 


97 


The principle of interpretation which now prevails 

throughout the Christian Church is sometimes Historico- 

grammatical 

called the historico-grammatical mode. It affirms testation”' 

“ The five canons here laid down are certainly very excellent, provided the 
second be properly qualified. ‘ Select the thought you wish to use.’ Very 
good. But then that thought should be one that is obviously in the passage, or 
logically deducible from it. It should be the leading thought. But E. II. Y. in 
his ‘ exercise ’ violates his own canon by putting a ‘ thought ’ on the board 
which is not selected from the lesson he proposes to illustrate, because it is not 
in it at all. Let us look at it a moment. 

“ The lesson is Acts xx, 9-12, which records Paul’s farewell sermon at Troas, 
the sleep of Eutychus at the open window, the fall and death of the sleeper, with 
his restoration to life by the apostle. 

“ Prom this passage, which was evidently recorded for the purpose of preserv- 
ing an account of the miracle, and not to censure Eutychus for a slumber which, 
if not unavoidable, was certainly excusable under the circumstances, we have 
for a selected point, 

“ ‘ Open windows dangebous foe sleepees.’ ” 

“Now if the lesson contained this proposition, to select it would show a singu- 
lar avoidance of a grand illustration of divine power for the sake of bringing 
out an unimportant physical fact. But the proposition itself is neither in the 
lesson, nor is it true in itself. 

“ All that the lesson teaches about open windows and sleepers is, that it is dan- 
gerous for persons to sleep in open windows. But E. II. Y. says, its thought 
is ‘open windows dangerous for sleepers,’ a statement which omits the impor- 
tant fact that the danger arises not from the open windows but from sleeping 
in them. This omission makes the statement false, for open windows are often 
healthful, instead of being dangerous, to sleepers. 

“ True, E. II. Y. in his note attempts to explain his meaning, but the need he 
felt for the insertion of a qualifying note ought to have shown him that his 
proposition was defective. The ‘ thought ’ on a blackboard should be so put 
as not to need qualification. If it does, one object of the blackboard, which is 
to impress some great truth on the mind through the eye, is defeated. Scholars 
carry away the point as it is written , not as it is qualified by the speaker. 

“ This defect in his main point vitiates the logic of his whole ‘ exercise.’ Who 
can see any connection between an open window and a ball room, a theater, or 
a drinking saloon? The note says the point of analogy is ‘that those who 
sleep in open windows do not realize the dangers to which they are exposed,’ 
etc. But this statement confuses the mind by changing the subject of the prop- 

7 


98 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


that the simple grammatical meaning of the text in its con- 
nections, modified only by what is requisite to be known 

osition. In the stated point '•open windows' 1 constitute the subject; in the 
note, those who ‘ sleep in open windows.’ 

“ Indeed, the note makes a new statement of the selected thought. It is no 
longer ‘open windows dangerous to sleepers,’ but those who sleep in open 
windows * do not realize the danger to w hich they are exposed,’ which is cer- 
tainly nearer the truth than the other. But its introduction tends to confuse 
the mind of the scholar. 

“Again, the ‘ exercise ’ is defective because it leaves its ‘ point ’ unproven. It 
assumes the ball room, etc., to be ‘ open windows,’ but as there is no obvious 
analogy between an open window and a ball room, the assertion must fall with- 
out weight on the scholar’s mind. 

“ But E. II. Y. will say, perhaps, that his note was intended to define the last 
term in his proposition — sleepers. Yery good. Let us apply his definition to 
his figurative open windows — the ball room for example. IIow will it stand ? 
Why thus : The ‘ ball room ’ is ‘ dangerous for sleepers,’ that is, for those 
‘ who do not realize the dangers to which they are exposed .’ Does not this 
make the danger lie, not in the thing itself, but in the failure of the ball room 
visitor to realize the true character of the place ? Let him realize this, and be- 
come a conscious and willful sinner, and the. ball room ceases to be an open 
window. What nonsense ! Yet we have no doubt that this exercise, given by 
a good chalker and talker in a school or institute, would be regarded as very 
fine. Its ingenuity would divert attention from its fallacy. 

“ Finally, the whole exercise is far-fetched. It is absurd to argue that because 
Eutychus fell out of a window a child should beware of going to a ball or a the- 
ter. There are plenty of texts which could be properly applied to dangerous 
amusements; but to go to poor, sleepy Eutychus for an argument is like going 
from New York to Philadelphia by way of Albany. The journey is possible, 
but it is needlessly long. That such an exercise should be given as a model in 
such an excellent paper as the “Times,” by one who is evidently a man of 
mental vigor, is a justification of our late caution to keep the blackboard out of 
unskillful hands. The blackboard is an educational Janus. It may be friend 
or foe to real instruction; therefore we say again, Use it sparingly, use it skill- 
fully, or let it alone. 

“ W r e have written this criticism not to discourage the proper use of the black- 
board, but to guard against its abuse. As an example of false syntax is often a bet- 
ter illustration of a grammatical rule than a correct rule, so may this criticism be 
a better help to one who uses the blackboard than a really faultless exex-cise.” 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


99 


about the language in which it was uttered, the individuality 

and custom of speaking of the author, and the manners and 

customs of the times, is the sense in which the Holy Ghost 

reveals his truth through the words of Scripture. 

The proper office of the commentary, Bible dictionary, and 

other helps is to correct the text if there is any 

A Office of com- 

error, to give the modern meaning of the word mentanes ' efcc - 
if the old is obsolete, to aid in reconciling the difficulties of 
Scripture, and to present such facts in relation to the times 
and customs and homes of the writers as will enable us better 
to apprehend their meaning. We wish to obtain from 
learned men the exact force of the expressions used by the 
inspired writers ; the doctrines and precepts involved in them 
we can apprehend ourselves. 


100 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


CHAPTER Y. 

PRELIMINARY STUDIES. 

j mms volume is written to meet the wants of those who 
are only familiar with their native tongue — the great 
body of our Bible interpreters to the children of the land, 
study of the Our own language is enriched with the choicest 

original lan- 
guages. translations from other tongues of works of crit- 

icism and with commentaries upon the Holy Scriptures. 
Dictionaries and exegetical notes are readily obtained, and 
at comparatively small expense, by our Sunday-school teachers. 
But to those that are still young, and can, although at con- 
siderable sacrifice, secure the time for the acquisition of 
ability to read with some ease the Hebrew and Greek text, 
we would unhesitatingly say, the pleasurable and profitable 
results will be an ample compensation for all the requisite 
toil. The finest linguist of New England mastered the 
numerous tongues which he read and spake while prose- 
cuting the laborious business of a blacksmith. It is not 
Persons need necessary to become critical scholars in order, bv 

not necessa- 7 J 

schoiars. lfclcal a general knowledge of the grammar, idioms, 
and meaning of the words, to be enabled better to appreciate 
and weigh the published results of the life-long scholarship 
and devotion to the work of biblical interpretation now the 
possession of the Christian Church. It is said of 

Bradford the 

Puntan. the Puritan Bradford that he mastered the Latin 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


101 


and Greek, and studied the Hebrew, because “ he would see 
with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native 
beauty.” 

II. In order to appreciate the meaning, the force, and the 
beauty of the sacred writings, it is necessary to be familiar 
with the geography of biblical countries, and of Should be fa- 
the former and present appearance of Scripture raphyt 1 geog " 
places. Of the effect of such a knowledge to confirm our 
confidence in the Bible, and to throw light upon its inspired 
pages, even Renan, the French Rationalist, says: “My 
commission led me to reside on the frontiers of Galilee, 
and to traverse it frequently. I have traveled 

J Testimony of 

through the evangelical province in every direc- Renan - 
tion. I have visited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria. 
Scarcely any locality important in the history of Jesus has 
escaped me. All this history, which at a distance seems 
floating in the clouds of an unreal world, thus assumed a 
body, a solidity, which astonished me. The striking accord 
of the texts and the places, the wonderful harmony of the 
evangelical ideal with the landscape which served as its 
setting, were to me as a revelation. I had before my eyes a 
fifth Gospel, torn, but still legible, and thenceforth, through 
the narratives of Matthew and Mark, instead of an abstract 
being, which one would say had never existed, I saw a 
wonderful human form live and move.” 1 

1 Life of Jesus, page 45. We find in an English Sunday-school periodical 
a homely but significant illustration of the power of a knowledge of Scripture 
localities to confirm our faith in the sacred record: “In a Yorkshire village 
1 knew one Thomas Walsh. It was a favorite opinion of Walsh’s that the Bible 
was ‘all made up.’ He could never believe it was written where it professed 


102 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED 


No one can listen to tlie lecture of Dr. Hibbard (author of a 
valuable treatise upon the Psalms) upon the jour- 

Hibbard and 1 

mcent. neyings of the Israelites in the wilderness, illus- 
trated by his large charts, without receiving a fresh and most 

to be, and by the men said to have written it. Walsh owned a considerable 
part of a factory, and one year he set his heart on making a very large and fine 
piece of cloth. He took great pains with the carding, spinning, dyeing, weav- 
ing, and finishing of it. In the process of manufacture it was one day stretched 
out on the tenter-hooks to dry. It made a fine show, and he felt very proud of 
it. The next morning he arose early to work at it, when, to his amazement, it 
was gone ! It had been stolen during the night. After weeks of anxiety and 
expense, a piece of cloth, answering the description, was stopped at Manchester, 
awaiting the owner and proof. Away to Manchester went Thomas as fast as 
the express train would carry him. There he found many rolls of cloth which 
had been stolen. They were very much alike. lie selected one which he 
claimed as his. But how could he prove it ? In doubt and perplexity he called 
on his neighbor Stetson. ‘ Friend Stetson, I have found a piece of cloth which 
I am sure is the one w r hich was stolen from me. But how to prove it is the 
question. Can you tell me how?’ ‘You don’t want it unless it is really 
yours ? ’ ‘ Certainly not.’ ‘ And you want proof that is simple, plain, and 

such as will satisfy yourself and everybody?’ ‘Precisely so.’ ‘Well, take 
Bible proof.’ ‘Bible proof 1 Pray, what is that?’ ‘Take your cloth to the 
tenter-hooks on which it was stretched, and if it is yours every hook will just 
come to the hole through which it passed before being taken down. There will 
be scores of such hooks, and if the hooks and holes just come together right, no 
other proof that the cloth is yours will be wanted.’ ‘ True. Why didn’t I 
think of this before ? ’ Away he hastened, and, sure enough, every hook camo 
to its little hole, and the cloth was proved to be his, and the thief was convict- 
ed, all on the evidence of the tenter-hooks. Some days after this, Thomas 
again hailed his friend. ‘ I say, Stetson, what did you mean by calling tenter- 
hooks proof, the other day, “ Bible proof? ’’ I am sure if I had the good evidence 
for the Bible that I had for my cloth, I would never doubt it again.’ ‘You 
have the same, only better, for the Bible.’ ‘ How so?’ ‘ Put it on the tenter- 
hooks. Take the Bible and travel with it; go to the place where it was 
made. There you find the Bed Sea, the Jordan, the Lake of Galilee, Mounts 
Lebanon, Hermon, Carmel, Tabor, and Gerizim ; there you find the cities of 
Damascus, Hebron, Tyre, Sidon, and Jerusalem. Every mountain, every river , 
every sheet of water mentioned in the Bible is there, just in the place where it? 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


103 


interesting version of the portions of the Pentateuch devoted 
to a record of these wanderings ; and the map drawings and 
explanations of Rev. J. H. Vincent at Sunday-school institutes 
have suggested to hundreds the invaluable service which a 
familiar knowledge of this science affords the interpreter of 
Scripture. 

“It is a common remark of historians concerning the Chris- 
tians of the Middle Ages that their devotion was astonish- 
ingly increased by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Effect of vis- 

. . iting holy 

This might be expected. They had gone over places, 
the hallowed ground, and were able to form a distinct pic- 
ture of it. They had walked the streets of the city which 
their divine Saviour had honored with his ministrations, and 
trod the very mount on which he had been lifted up between 
heaven and earth. The vivid idea of the localities passed, 
by an easy transition, to all the facts and doctrines connected 
with them, and the felt reality of Calvary diffused itself over 
the sufferings which a thousand years before had been en- 
dured there.” 2 

As an instance of the new life which may be given to an 
ancient event let us extract a few sentences from the diary 
of Dean Stanley, kept during his memorable tour with the 

is located. Sinai, and the desert, and the Dead Sea are there ; so that the best 
guide-book through the country is the Bible. It must have been written there 
on the spot, just as your cloth must have been made and stretched on your ten- 
ter-hooks. That land is the mold in which the Bible was cast, and when 
brought together we see that they fit together. You might just as well doubt 
that your cloth was fitted to your hooks. 1 ‘Well, well, I confess I never 
thought of that. I’ll think it over again. If you are right, why, then, I’m 
wrong, that’s all .’ — Bible C. Magazine. 

2 Canon and Interpretation of Scripture. By Prof. M’Lelland, page 137. 


104 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Prince of Wales over Palestine. We should be glad, had we 
space, to introduce the entire account of the visit to the old 
Abrahamic city of Hebron. After leaving the mosque, cover- 
ing, with strong evidences of probability, the cave of Machpe- 
lah, where reposes the dust of several of the patriarchs and 
their wives, they “rode over the hills south of Hebron to visit 
the probable scene of the romantic transaction, recorded in the 

Caleb’s gift to book of Joshua and the book of Judges, between 
his daughter 

Achsah. Caleb and his daughter Achsah. 3 A wide val- 

ley, unusually green, amid the barren hills of the ‘ south 
country,’ suddenly breaks down into an almost precipitous 
and still greener ravine. On the south side of this ravine is 
a village called Dura , possibly the Adorami of the book of 
Chronicles ; 4 on the north, at the summit of a steeper and 
more rugged ascent, is Dewer Dan , which recalls the name of 
Debir , the fortress which Othniel stormed on the condition of 
winning Achsah for his bride. ‘ Give me,’ she said to her 
father, as she rode on her ass beside him, ‘ a field,’ (a bless- 
ing, a rich field, such as that which lies spread in the green 
basin, which she and Caleb would first encounter in their 
ride from Hebron,) ‘for thou hast given me a south land,’ 
(these dry rocky hills which extend as far as the eye can 
reach, till they melt into the hazy platform of the desert,) 
‘give me also the babblings of water, the upper and lower 

Scenery an- bubblings.’ It is an expressive word, (translated 
swers > to de- ° x 1 x 

Scripture. ° f i n our version upper and nether springs,) which 
seems to be used for tumbling , falling waves, and is thus 
especially applicable to the rare sight of a clear rivulet that, 
3 Josh. XV, 16-19 ; Judges i, 11-15. ‘ 2 Chron. xi, 9. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


105 


rising in the green meadow above mentioned, falls and flows 
continuously down to the bottom of the ravine, and by its 
upper and nether streams gives verdure to the whole. The 
identification is not perhaps absolutely certain, but the scene 
lends itself to the incident in every particular.” 5 

The full effect of personal examination we may not be able 
to enjoy ; but in such works as Dr. Robinson’s, Workg th 
Dean Stanley’s, Thomson’s “ The Land and the vivid idea of 

holy locali- 

Book,” and Ritter’s Geography of Palestine, we ties - 
are enabled to look upon sacred localities almost as distinctly 
as if we gazed upon them with our own eyes. All fulfilled 
prophecy, both of the Old and New Testaments, relating to 
ancient countries and cities, finds the most im- importance of 

this as to ful- 

pressive confirmation in the present appearance fcy. d proph ' 
of these memorable lands. There is continued reference in 
the Old Testament to a gigantic race beside whom the Jewish 
spies were as grasshoppers. 6 They were the original inhabit- 
ants of Bashan, east of the Jordan, and probably of Canaan. 
These Scripture statements in reference to the ^ g . antg of 
wonderful height and strength of these men Bashan - 
might be thought exaggerated ; but the memorials of them, 
says Rev. J. L. Porter, are to be found in every section of 
Palestine in the form of graves of enormous dimensions. He 
personally examined, in his most interesting tour through 
Bashan, cities built and occupied by them forty centuries ago 
still in existence. “I have traversed,” he says, “their streets, 
I have opened the doors of their houses, I have slept peace- 
fully in their long-deserted halls. We shall see, too, that 
6 Sermons in the East, page 193. 8 Num. xiii, 33. 


106 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


The cities of 
Bashan. 


among the massive ruins of these wonderful cities lie sculp- 
tured images of Astarte, with the crescent moon, which gave 
her the name of Camaim, upon her brow.” 7 

In the final conquest of Bashan, in the small province of 
Argob, it is said in Deuteronomy that Jair, one of the chiefs 
of the tribe of Manasseh, took no less than sixty great cities, 
“ fenced with high walls, gates, and bars, besides 
unw ailed towns a great many.” 8 Og, the last of 
the giants, whose bedstead was about fourteen feet in length 
and six in breadth, was the ruler of Bashan at this time. 
“ Such a statement as this,” says Porter, “ seems all but in- 
credible. It would not stand the arithmetic of Bishop 
Colenso for a moment. Often, when reading the passage, I 
used to think that some strange mystery hung over it, for 
What Porter how could a province measuring not more than 

saw in Ba- 

shan. thirty miles by twenty support such a number 

of fortified cities, especially when the greater part of it was 
a wilderness of rocks; but mysterious, incredible as this 
seemed, on the spot, with my own eyes, I have seen that it is 
literally true. The cities are there to this day. Some of 
them retain the ancient names recorded in the Bible.” 9 

In these cities and the beautiful surrounding fields the 
tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, natur- 
ally enough, desired to settle. “Bashan was regarded by 
Bashan in the the prophets of Israel as an earthly paradise. 

poetry of the A 

Bible. The strength and grandeur of its oaks, 10 the 

beauty of its mountain scenery, 11 the unrivaled luxuriance of 


7 Giant Cities of Bashan, page 12. a p e ut. iii, 4, 5, 14. 

9 Giant Cities of Bashan, page 13. 10 Ezek. xsvii, 6. 7 1 Psa. lxxviii, 15. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


107 


its pastures, 12 the fertility of its wide-spreading plains, and 
the excellence of its cattle, 13 all supplied the sacred penmen 
with lofty imagery. Remnants of the oak forests still clothe 
the mountain side ; the soil of the plains and the pastures on 
the downs are rich as of yore, and though the periodic raids 
of Arab tribes have greatly thinned the flocks 

° Present ap- 

and herds, as they have desolated the cities, yet pearance ” 
such as remain — the rams and lambs, and goats and bulls — 
may be appropriately described in the words of Ezekiel as 
all of them fatlings of Basham” 14 

In his very interesting travels in Arabia Petraea John L. 
Stephens, Esq., visited the wonderful but now vacant city of 
Petra, whose dwellings and temples and tombs, „ , 
highly sculptured and ornamented, were scooped Petra ‘ 
out of the sides of the mountain. Upon this proud city of 
the descendants of Esau, in the mountains of Seir, because 
they refused to permit Israel to pass through their borders, 
the Almighty denounced the severest judgments. “ I have 
sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah (the strong 
or fortified city) shall become a desolation, a Prophecies 

against Idu- 

reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the mea. 
cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes. Lo, I will make 
thee small among the heathen, and despised among men. 
Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine 
heart, O thou that dicellest in the clefts of the rocJcs, that 
holdest the height of the hill : though thou shouldest make 
thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from 

12 Jer. 1, 19. 13 Psa. xxii, 12 ; Micah vii, 14. 

14 Ezek. xxxix, 18. Giant Cities, pages 14, 15. 


108 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


thence, saith the Lord.” 1& “Thoms shall come up in her pal- 
aces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it 
shall be a habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.” 16 “I 
would that the skeptic,” says Stephens, “ could stand as I 
did among the ruins of this city among the rocks, and there 


open the sacred book and read the words of the 
inspired penman, written when this desolate 


The lesson to 
the skeptic. 


place was one of the greatest cities of the world. I see the 
scoffer arrested, his cheek pale, his lip quivering, and his 
heart quaking with fear as the ruined city cries out to him 
in a voice loud and powerful as that of one risen from the 
dead ; though he would not believe Moses and the prophets 
he believes the handwriting of God himself in the desola- 
tion and eternal ruin around him.” 17 

These illustrations will serve simply to indicate how valu- 
able a service a knowledge of the geography and present 
condition of scriptural countries will render in the interpre- 
tation of Scripture. Our Christian literature is crowded with 
Better read- valuable and interesting volumes of this descrip- 
usuaifysdect! tion. If our young people would throw aside 
the unsubstantial and exciting tales and stories that come in 
avalanches from the press at the present time, and seek 
works of travel in their stead, they would soon acquire a 
taste and an appetite for what would nourish the intellect 
and quicken the spiritual life. 


Customs and 
manners. 


III. It is necessary also to have some knowl- 
edge of the customs and manners of the people 


I 5 Jer. xlix, 13, 15. 


16 Isa. xxxiv, 13. 


1 7 Travels in Egypt and Arabia Petraea, vol. ii, p. 58. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


109 


of the East. It is a curious fact that these customs to-day, 

in a large degree, are the same as those in Abraham’s time. 

The Lord has permitted these habits to be stereotyped as a 

standing commentary upon and illustration of his word. 

Says Sir Samuel W. Baker, the celebrated English tourist, in 

his last volume, “The Nile Tributaries in Abys- Testimony of 

Sir S. W. Ba- 

sinia,” referring to the customs of the native ker - 
tribes, “this striking similarity to the descriptions of the 
Old Testament is exceedingly interesting to a traveler when 
residing among these curious and original people. With the 
Bible in one hand and these unchanged tribes before the 
eyes, there is a thrilling illustration of the sacred record ; the 
past becomes the present ; the vail of three thousand years is 
raised, and the living picture is a witness to the exactness of 
the historical description. At the same time there is a light 
thrown upon many obscure passages in the Old Testament 
by the experience of the present customs and figures of 
speech of the Arabs, which are precisely those that were 
practiced at the periods described.” 

The Song of Solomon, viewed in the light of our marriage 
service, which requires for its performance but a 

^ x Song of Solo- 

few moments, is incomprehensible, or can only mon ' 
be conceived of as a sensuous portrayal of marital love ; but 
in the light of oriental custom, according to which the nup- 
tial rites extended over a number of days, which were passed 
in delightful companionship, the longing of the Church for the 
coming of the bridegroom, the prophetic announcement of his 
approach, the joy in his presence, and also the panting of the 
individual soul for the “Chiefest among ten thousand,” the 


110 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Parables. 


grief at his delay, the holy ecstasy upon his approach, are all 
wonderfully illustrated in the protracted and elaborate cere- 
monies and triumphant choruses of an eastern marriage. 

Several of the most impressive parables of our Lord 
require for their exposition, and the comprehen- 
sion of their moral lessons, a knowledge of these 
rites. “What is written in the Bible must, as much as is 
we must see nee dful, be placed more particularly in the light 
wimt .is wiit- ^ from which it is descended, to which 

light of the 

times. it alludes, and of which it speaks. We must 

pay attention to the civil, social, and religious conditions, 
ideas, and views with which that which is written stands in 
connection in any way.” 18 There are but few chapters in 
the Bible for the clear understanding of which it is not 
necessary to be acquainted with the manners and customs of 
the East, in particular of the Jews, to be secured against , 
misunderstanding. 

For illustration, the passage recorded in John i, 18, 

“ which is in the bosom of the Father,” referring 
to the near and unshared relation of the Son to 
the Father, is illustrated by their habit of reclining at the 
table. John, leaning next to his Master, reclined upon his 
bosom, and heard every word that dropped from his lips ; so 
the only-begotten Son rested upon the bosom of the Father, 
and he only could reveal him and his word to the world. 
This custom, also, causing the limbs to be extended upon the 
couch behind them, illustrates the ease with which a grateful 
penitent could bathe the Saviour’s feet while he sat at meat, 
18 Manual of Hermeneutics. By Dr. Doedes, page 109. 


Illustrations 
of this. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Ill 


wipe them with her disheveled hair, or anoint them with 
fragrant and precious ointment. 19 

The breaking of bread, which is referred to in Matt, xxvi, 
26, and parallel passages, where it is said Jesus 

Breaking of 

broke bread at the institution of the last supper, bread - 
is a very natural thing, as those reclining at the table used no 
knives, and therefore bread had to be broken to be distrib- 
uted. Very easily the expression came to signify the same 
as to eat, or to keep a feast. 20 “ He who does not think of 
this, or does not know it, readily finds in that ‘ breaking of 
bread’ a symbol, and that of the breaking of Error as ap . 

plied to 

Jesus’s body, which, however, was not broken. Christ’s body, 
(See John xix, 33, 36.) In 1 Cor. xi, 24, the word 1 broken ’ in 
the words of the institution of the Lord’s supper does not 
belong to the original text.” 21 It is omitted by Alford, 
Tischenclorf, and others, in their editions of the Greek New 
Testament. These illustrations might readily be multiplied, 
but enough has been said to indicate the importance of the 
subject. 

IY. The Bible is full of symbols. In all ages men have 

instinctively recognized in physical objects and 

. Symbols, 

events the outward expression of the thoughts 

and emotions of which they are conscious themselves, or of 
which they have perceived signs in others. “ Thus the sun 
is the acknowledged emblem of power and creation, the tem- 
pest is a thunderbolt of wrath, the snow a symbol of purity, 
the rainbow of promise and hope. Spring-time and morning 
are symbols of youth, sunset and winter of age and death. The 
19 Luke vii, 38 ; John xii, 8. 20 Acts ii, 46 ; xx, 7. 21 Dr. Doedes. 


112 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


mountains naturally suggest the idea of stability, and the sea 
that of immensity. 22 The lion is a symbol of fierceness, the 
lamb of innocence, the fox of cunning, the wolf of rapacity, 
and the dove of gentleness. In the Scriptures the horn is a 
symbol of strength and triumph, wings of swiftness, and eyes 
of intelligence. Hardly a page of Scripture can be found 
without a significant symbol. The ceremonial law was a 
The ceremo- collection of symbols. Of the divine symbols set 

nial law sym- 
bolical. forth in the costume of the priests, in the furni- 

ture of the tabernacle and temple, in the various sacrifices 
and festivals, the writer of the book of Hebrews gives a 
full exposition. We should not attempt to go further, as 
some do, with a ‘ zeal not according to knowledge,’ and seek 
to find a spiritual meaning in the most trifling details of the 

Symbols may Hebrew sanctuary : in the nails by which the 
be carried to 

extremes. covering was fastened to the earth, in the golden 
snuffers, and in the tinkling bells upon the priestly robes. 
The writer heard a very earnest and very popular young 
divine, before a great body of Bible teachers, affirm that there 
was nothing, not even the simplest arrangement of the taber- 
nacle, but had a spiritual application; which was simply 
nonsense. The author of the book of Hebrews shows that 
the Jewish service, taken as a whole, was a symbol of the 
what Hebrews Gospel, anc * was replete with a spiritual meaning 

teaches. 

under material forms. It has been happily said 

that the best commentary upon the book of Leviticus is the 

Epistle to the Hebrews ; and, what can be said of no other 
* 

commentary, it is inspired. As a general principle, it may be 
52 Symbols of Christendom. By J. R. Thompson, M. A. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


113 


Twelve. 


held unsafe to find any types in Old Testament characters, 
as Adam, Noah, Joseph, David, not affirmed to be such by 
the Scriptures themselves. 

Throughout the Bible, numbers, unless it is definitely stated 
or clearly to be inferred that they are to be taken 

Symbolical 

literally, are used symbolically. Seven is constantly numbers - 
used in this way to signify a complete or perfect number. 
Thus we read of seven lamps, seven stars, seven 

The number 

kings, seven diadems, seven hills, seven golden seven - 
vials, seven angels, and seven spirits of God. The number 
twelve, as a complete number, we find multiplied into 
itself in the reckoning of the ransomed of Israel, who 
are estimated at one hundred and forty-four thousand. Forty 
means many. The city of Persepolis, in eastern language, is 
called “ the city of forty towers,” though the number 
is much larger. This is probably the meaning in 
2 Kings viii, 9, where Hazael is said to have brought as a 
present to Elisha forty camels’ burden of the good things of 
Damascus. Seventy is used to express a large, complete, but 
uncertain number. We are commanded to forgive till 

. . . „ Seventy. 

seventy times seven, to indicate that if our brother 
repent of his fault there must be no narrow limit to his for- 
giveness. The rude reckoning of a year was three hundred and 
sixty days ; this multiplied by three and a half (a The three 

hundred and 

time, times, and half a time) gives twelve hundred sixt y da y s - 
and sixty, the famous prophetic and symbolic number which 
has given rise to so much conjecture. The Hebrew letters 
which form the word corresponding to “ mys- gJx hundred 
tery ” represent, when employed as numerals, the and slxty ‘ 81x - 


Forty. 


114 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


mystic number six hundred and sixty-six. 23 How astonish- 
ing that any one should build up a mathematical plan of the 
world’s duration, upon such confessedly symbolical figures, 
of the exact value of which inspiration has given no measure. 
Natural phenomena are constantly used as symbols in the 
Old and New Testaments. The sun is an em- 

Natural sym- 

blem of glory and strength, the morning star of 
beauteous promise, the rainbow of God’s covenant of mercy. 
In the Book of Revelation there are many symbols portending 
calamity, such as lightning and thunder, winds, fire and 
brimstone, the blackened sun, the blood-red moon, stars 
burning or falling from heaven, earthquake, fire, and flame. 
Animals and their bodily members play a large part in the 
prophetical and poetical Scriptures. The four 

Animal sym- 

living ones (“ beasts” in our version) of Ezekiel 
have given rise to volumes of controversy ; they probably 
symbolize the whole animated creation. The white horse is 
the emblem of victory, the red of war, the black of famine, 
and the pale of death. The ferocity of the leopard and the 
bear, the headstrong push of the ram, the deadly bite of the 
Scorpion, the destructiveness of locust-swarms, the deadly 
power of the serpent, furnish the key to their symbolic 
employment in prophecy. 24 

Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Land of Promise, and the 
Jerusalem and place where the Lord especially recorded his 

Babylon sym- 

Church/ the name and manifested his presence, is often used 
to symbolize the Church of Christ in the ideal perfectness of 
her situation, economy, rule, and security. On the other 


53 Symbols of Christendom. 


2 * Ibid. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


115 


liand, Babylon, to the Jewish mind a name of ill omen, 
suggesting a memory of captivity, idolatry, and shame, is 
the personification of that sinful society which opposes and 
harasses the Church. The terms Sodom and Egypt, for the 
same reasons, are used for the same purpose. 

The emblems of earthly royalty are freely employed in 
Scripture to denote the authority and reign of E ^ 

God and of created invisible powers. Many alty * 
diadems upon one head denote plurality of dominion, which 
the pope of Rome still symbolizes in his triple crown or 
tiara. The iron scepter is the symbol of severity, as the 
Psalmist predicts : “ He shall rule the nations with a 
rod of iron.” The sword is the universal emblem of 
war; he who bears the sword is mighty to oppose and 
to subdue. “ The sword going out of the mouth ” is sym- 
bolical of the power attending the words of the august 
Speaker. 

“ The harvest and the vintage were, among the Jews, the 
chief seasons of agricultural festivitv. In the 

J The vintage 

symbolism of the Apocalypse, the corn harvest and harvest * 
and the subsequent garnering denote the spiritual maturity 
and the eternal safety of Christ’s people ; the vintage, on the 
other hand, figures forth ripeness unto wrath ; the treading 
of the grapes in the wine-press emblematizing the severity of 
the inevitable and divine vengeance. The sharp sickle is 
common to both, being the instrument in the one case of 
salvation, in the other of destruction. The vials 

The vials. 

which were emptied by the angels upon the earth 
were not what we understand by that term in English ; they 


116 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


were tlie Latin paterae, broad, flat bowls or dishes, used both 
in worship and in household affairs.” 26 The harp is an 
emblem of joy and praise ; the scroll, or book, 

Harp, keys, 

and book. 0 f purposes and decrees ; the seal upon it 
denotes secresy. Keys signify power to admit and exclude ; 
a gem or white stone, acquittal, friendship, or felicity. By 
eating a book, or scroll, is intended participation in the 


The bride. 


divine purposes ; by drinking the wine of wrath and the 
cup of vengeance, the enduring of the divine displeasure. 

The bride is the pure, chosen, and beloved 
Church of Christ. The Church is also repre- 
sented under the similitude of the woman clothed with the 
sun. The harlot is the idolatrous, antichristian body tempt- 
ing the true Church to forsake the Lord. 26 

The great battle between truth and error is set forth in the 
„ , , , Revelation in symbols taken from the prophecy 

mageddon. 0 f Ezekiel, in which the forces of Gog and 

Magog represent the combined hosts of error gathered from 
every quarter. Of its final result the Church of Christ is left 
in no anxious doubt. It often occurs in the Old Testament 
that the prophets predict the judgments which God is about 
to visit upon the nations by symbolical acts, as 
where Isaiah is directed to “ loose the sackcloth 
from his loins,” to “ put off the shoe from his foot,” and he is 
walking said to have done so “ walking naked and 

naked and 

barefoot. barefoot three years a sign and a wonder.” 27 
Evidently this was not actually done by the prophet, for it 
would have been a shameful exposure of his person ; but the 
26 J. R. Thompson. 28 Ibid. 27 Isa. xx. 


Symbolical 

acts. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


117 


symbolic picture is presented, illustrating the judgments of 
God about to be brought upon Egypt and Ethiopia. Ere 
long they would be conquered in battle, made captives, and 
be led forth “ naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks 
uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.” Thus by this pictured 
symbol a shameful uncovering or a disgraceful humiliation of 
the proud idolatrous powers upon whom Israel was inclined 
to lean for support in her threatened invasions from the East, 
is pointed out. If the prophet had simply exposed himself 
in this manner no one would have connected his shame with 
that of the designated countries ; or, if he had symbolical 

only, or with- 

declared this, his constant appearance for three out force - 
years would have utterly destroyed its impressiveness. It 
was simply a symbolized prophecy. 

Thus also the symbolical marriage of the prophet to the 

prophetess, 28 and the birth of a son with a.sym- Marriage of 
r r ’ J the prophet to 

bolic name, could not have been a literal occur- ess. prophet ‘ 
rence, because such a course would have been simply adultery, 
as evidently the prophetess was not of his family. The object 
of the prophetic warning was to show the Jewish people that 
a certain overthrow would be speedily visited upon the 
combined powers of Samaria and Damascus. For this pur- 
pose the prophet is led by God to the prophetess, that by the 
conjunction of a twofold prophetical character in the parent- 
age there might be a birth in the strongest sense prophetical. 
The name of the child is significant as translated : hasten , 
spoil, quich prey. Before the predictive child should be able 
to cry “My father,” God declares by Isaiah, that both Syria 


28 Isaiah viii, 1-31. 


118 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


and Damascus shall have fallen under the stroke of Assyria. 
As a predictive symbol, the prophecy is impressive ; as an 
actual fact, it would have been inconsistent, criminal, and 
without power to awaken conviction. 29 

These illustrations will afford aid in the consideration of 
many symbolical prophecies which, literally understood, 
shock the moral sense, but considered simply as picturesque 
and significant signs are striking and full of force. “ Hosea,” 
for example, “ is commanded to marry two impure women ; 
Symbols of Ezekiel to lie on his left side three hundred and 

Hosea and 

Ezekiel. ninety days, looking at an iron pan, then turn 
over to his right side, on which he must lie forty additional 
days, eating during the whole period a compost of lentiles, 
beans, barley, millet, and fitches, prepared in a manner most 
decidedly offensive. We affirm boldly that the expositors 
who consider these, and others which might be mentioned, 
as real transactions, dishonor the word of God, while they 
betray a want of taste that is astounding. Beyond all doubt, 
they were symbolical representations that passed before the 
prophet’s mind in his inspired ecstasy.” 80 

It will be seen how modestly and carefully these scriptural 
symbols must be used. Many enthusiastic symbolists have 
Symbols staked their reputation upon views of the future 

should be in- A A 

great e careT lth depending upon their proper rendering of these 
often mysterious symbols, and have been terribly abased by 
the result. What is distinctly revealed is for us and our 
children ; but what God has seen fit to vail we are to receive 
as indistinct disclosures of divine purposes, held out as great 
29 Fairbairn on Prophecy, page 501. 30 Canon and Interpretation, page 205. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


119 


but distant lights for the direction and encouragement of 
the Church. 

Y. We will refer to but one other preliminary requisite to 
the safe interpretation of the holy records, and Must be in 

sympathy with 

that is, that we should endeavor to be in sympa- ters. ed wri ' 
thy in thought and feeling with the sacred writers. This is 
necessary in reference to any ancient or foreign author. 
“ Language,” says Fairbairn, “ is but the utterance of thought 
and feeling on the part of one person to another, and the 
more we can identify ourselves with the state of mind out of 
which that thought and feeling arose the more manifestly 
shall we be qualified for appreciating the language in which 
they are embodied, and reproducing true and living impres- 
sions of it.” 31 

Thus Hagenbach remarks in his Encyclopedia, “ An inward 
interest in the doctrine of theology is needful for Hagenbach 

upon inward 

a biblical interpreter. As we say that a philo- interest, 
sophical spirit is demanded for the study of Plato, a poetical 
taste for the reading of Homer or Pindar, a sensibility to wit 
and satire for the perusal of Lucian, a patriotic sentiment for 
the enjoyment of Sallust and Tacitus, equally certain is it 
that fitness to understand the profound truths of Scripture 
presupposes, as an indispensable requisite, a sentiment of 
piety, an inward religious experience.” The excellent Ne- 
ander’s motto was, “ Pectus est quod theologium 
facit :” “ It is the heart that makes the theology.” ander * 

It is the want of this living sympathy and divine experience 
that renders certain, otherwise so intelligent, scholars blind 

81 Hermeneutical Manual, page 80. 


120 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


to the significant meaning of the Scriptures. The learned 
but rationalistic Dr. Paulus, of Heidelberg, upon 

Dr. Paulus. 

the passage, “Blessed art thou, for flesh and 
blood have not revealed it to thee, but my Father that is in 
heaven,” can see nothing more than a reference to the force 
of circumstances in awakening the mind toward what is 
good ; and in the words, “ I must work the works of Him that 
sent me while it is day ; the night cometh when no man 
can work all the sense he can find is, “ I must heal 
the diseased eyes before the evening twilight comes on, 
because when it is dark we can no longer see to work .” 32 
_ Thus it ever has been, and always will be, as 

Jesus said when upon earth, “ Thou hast hid 
these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them 
unto babes.” 

“When the Christian reads,” says Dr. Stowe, “what Jesus 
said to Martha, ‘ one thing is needful his own Christian con- 
sciousness teaches him that true religion, the love of Christ, 
is here meant as the one thing needful, and both grammar 
and lexicography sustain his position ; but Paulus, who has 
no Christian consciousness, in the proper sense of the term, 
can see in these words nothing more than a declaration from 
the intellectual and temperate Rabbi to the anxious woman 
cumbered about much serving, and eager to prepare a 
sumptuous entertainment for her beloved teacher, that one 
dish is enough for supper, nor can grammar and lexicon 
alone prove the interpretation to be wrong .” 88 

Dr. Goulburn starts the inquiry why the Bible offers so 


82 Dr. Fairbairn. 


33 Bibliotheca Sacra. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


121 


little attraction to most persons, and why they Answer to 

query why so 

seem to gather their theological views from any llft^ Mbie? 
other source rather than the Bible, and answers it thus : 
“ It is, I fear, that we are interested in theology, and not in 
religion ; in questions and controversies rather than in godly 
edifying -which is in faith. Our minds are interested, and we 
read religious works to feed and stimulate them. Our hearts 
are comparatively uninterested, and so the light of the heart, 
the food of the heart, the joy of the heart, the comfort of the 
heart, are reckoned cheap and common things in our eyes.” 
We need the presence and inward aid of the 

Men need the 

Holy Spirit in order clearly to apprehend re- Holy Splrlt - 
vealed truth, “ for what man knoweth the things of a man 
save the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the things of 
God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God .” 34 The Scrip- 
tures cannot be deeply and perfectly understood except by 
the guidance of the same mind which inspired ^ e t)l e n !crip r 
them. The letter of the Scriptures may be familiar iighten U us. en * 
to us from our youth upward, but to God’s own thought and 
counsel we shall be strangers until the Holy Spirit, by his 
divine communications, reveals them to our souls. Dr. Goul- 
bum happily illustrates this truth by comparing the Bible to 
a sun-dial, which is in itself perfect and com- 

r This truth il- 

plete, graven with all the hours, and with a lustrated - 
gnomon or index, which casts an exact shadow ; but wiiat 
avails a sun-dial without light ? On a cloudy day, in the 
twilight, or at midnight, it cannot inform us of the time ; so 
the Bible is the chart of life, and is “ able to make us wise 

34 1 Cor. ii, 11. 


122 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


unto salvation but its one indispensable condition is, that 

the Spirit, while we are reading it, shall be shining upon the 

heart. The Psalmist seems to have regard to this double 

necessity when he prays, “O send out thy light 
Prayer of the J 1 J J * 

Psalmist. and thy truth , that they may lead me and bring 
me to thy holy hill ! ” 

To guard against any misapprehension of the character of 
this work of the Holy Spirit enlightening the mind in answer 
Nature of this to prayer, it is proper to remark that one is not 

work of the 

Spirit. to expect after he has prayed “ any sudden influx 

of a wonderful light, quite distinct from the ordinary powers 

of reflection and memory. The Holy Spirit acts upon the 

mind through the ordinary mental faculties, not without 

Spirit acts them, or independently of them. When, after 
through the 

mind. careful, patient, and prayerful thought, or after 

an effort of the imagination to realize some scriptural narra- 
tive in all its details, we find that the difficulties, one after 
another, begin to clear up, like clouds rolling away from the 
bosom of a mountain, and revealing patches of verdure smit- 
ten with the sunbeam ; or when memory recalls some appo- 
site allusion elsewhere, or some illustrative experience, 
through which we ourselves have passed — the light so vouch- 
safed is undistinguishable in our consciousness from that 
which is supplied by our natural faculties ; it is supplied 
through them, they being called into operation and assisted 
by grace, whose primary actings are in the abyssmal depths 
of the mind, far beyond the ken of the keenest self- 
intuition.” 35 


38 Devotional Study of the Scriptures. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


123 


Whatever other source of information may be beyond the 
teacher’s reach in entering upon the work of in- Tllig grace al . 

ways proffer- 

terpreting Scripture, this highest source of spir- ed to us. 
itual illumination is ever open and ever available, for saith 
our Lord, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heav- 
enly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him .” 36 


38 Luke xi, 13. 


124 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


CHAPTER VI. 


RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 


Rule I. 


IHE literal meaning is to be given to all words, 



unless it will cause them to express what is in- 
consistent with universal experience as to the na- 
ture of things, or with the declared opinions of 
the sacred writers in other passages, or at variance 
with the evident scope of the passage itself. 

Always recollecting that the Scriptures are for the most 

part written in the language of common life, unless we find 

Obvious mean- positive qualifying reasons apparent the obvious 
ing the true 

one. and common-sense significance of the language 

of the sacred writers is to be received as the true meaning. 
We are not to apply a sense to the words that will best suit 
our opinion of what should have been said, or wdiat we 
desire should be said; but our only inquiry is, What did 
Bengei on they say ? Bengel was accustomed to say, “ It is 

holding to 

Scripture text, better to run all lengths with Scripture truth in 
a natural and open manner than to shift and twist and 
accommodate. Every single truth is a light of itself, and 
every error, however minute, is darkness as far as it goes.” 1 

1 Of the various opinions that have been forced upon the simple utterances 
of Scripture Dr. Stowe remarks: “As an illustration of this, read such works 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


125 


Melanchthon, the St. John of the Reformation in spirit, and 
its scholar in literature, says in his Elements 

. # Melanchthon. 

of Rhetoric, “ The sense of Scripture is one, 
certain, and simple, and is every where to be ascertained 
in accordance with the principles of grammar and human 
discourse.” 

The reformer himself says, with characteristic earnestness : 
“We must not make God’s word mean what we 

Martin 

wish ; we must not bend it, but allow it to bend Luther * 
us ; and give it the honor of being better than we could 
make it, so that we must let it stand.” 

The simplest and most natural meaning that flows from 

as Owen on the Hebrews, or M’Knight on the Epistles. Able books in their 
way, and showing no small amount of intellectual acumen and industrious 
scholarship; but how many things they think of, how many arguments they 
have, how much meaning they will find in Paul, at which the apostle himself 
would be astonished with great astonishment if he knew it were attributed to 
him ! The same is true of some of the purest and strongest of our New En- 
gland writers. If Moses and Isaiah and David and John and Paul had been 
natives of New England, habituated to the New England modes of Thought, 
educated in New England colleges, and settled ministers over New England 
parishes, these expositions of our excellent fathers would have been very cor- 
rect ; but as matters are, they in many cases rather project themselves than 
expound the sacred writers. Dr. Burton, in his proof-texts for the Taste Scheme , 
has the most comforting conviction that the apostle Paul was full of the same 
philosophy with himself; and Dr. Emmons, in his Scriptural proofs of the 
Exercise Scheme , has the most unflinching assurance that the apostle Paul was 
clearly and heartily an exerciser ; but I suspect the apostle would be greatly 
surprised to learn that he was either the one or the other, and as much con- 
founded if the question were put to him which he was, as if he were asked 
whether he were a Lockeian or a Coleridgeite. Those questions were not up in 
his day, nor did the apostle’s reasoning run on those lines. Tou might as well 
start the question whether he journeyed from Miletus to Jerusalem on a rail- 
road or in a steamboat, and adduce long and learned arguments in favor of one 
of these hypotheses and against the other.” — Bibliotheca Sacra , vol. x, p. 48. 


126 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


the words, giving the least impression of constraint or 
The simplest uncommon use, may, other things being equal, 

meaning the . 

true one. be relied upon as the sense m which the words 
are to be understood. The writers were from comparatively 
humble ranks in life. “Their manners and habits, their 
The writers modes of conception and forms of speech, are 

men of hum- . # 3 

bie origin. such as usually belong to persons similarly cir- 
cumstanced ; that is, they partake, not of the polish and re- 
finement, the art and subtlety, which too commonly mark 
the footsteps of high cultivation and luxurious living, but of 
the free, the open, the natural, as of persons accustomed 
frankly to express, not to conceal, their emotions, or to wrap 
their sentiments in disguise.” 2 

Remark 1. Where, however, the literal meaning asserts that 
when literal which is Tcnown to be impossible it must be given 

meaning as- 

posslbimy in it U P > ^ evidently then a symbolical or figurative 
must be giv en expression. As, for illustration, when the psalm- 
ist says, “ The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they 
go astray as soon as they be bom, speaking lies.” 3 The 
literal meaning is impossible- here, for no one can speak lies 
from the moment of birth ; while the truth taught, that the 
depraved heart from the first leads the unregenerate person 
astray, is readily understood. In Jeremiah’s prophecy we read, 
“ They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns.” 4 Wheat 
seed would never be followed by a harvest of thorns ; but the 
expectation which they cherished of a bountiful and whole- 
some return from their labors would be blasted. 

“ When it is said in 1 Cor. xv, 22, ‘ For as in Adam all 
9 Fairbairn*s Hermeneutical Manual. 3 Psa. lvili, 8. 4 Jer. xil, 13. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


127 


die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,’ these words, 
as in Adam all die , cannot be intended to affirm illustration 

, .... from 1 Cor. 

that all men existed in Adam, nor that they xv, 22 . 

all sinned in his person, nor that they all died when he died. 

These are known impossibilities. One person cannot be all 

mankind ; all mankind cannot be one person. Men cannot 

exist before they exist ; they cannot die before they live ; they 

cannot sin before they act.” 5 Some other meaning, therefore, 

which the Scriptures themselves would naturally afford, must 

be found for this expression. So when, in Matthew x, 34, 

Christ tells his disciples that “ he came not to Christ send- 
ing a “sword” 

send peace on earth, but a sword,” no justifica- justification 10 
tion from the literal rendering can be found for Son. peisecu 
the violent persecution of those esteemed to be Christ’s 
enemies; but history interprets clearly its meaning. The 
Gospel has ever occasioned differences and discords in fam- 
ilies and nations by inducing some to accept its self-denying 
truth ; while others have rejected it, and have bitterly opposed 
its friends. 

“ When David says that ‘ he is poured out like water, and 

all his bones are out of joint; that his heart is David “pour- 
ed out like 

melted in the midst of his bowels,’ we perceive water.” 

instantly that a literal pouring out and melting cannot be 

meant, as nothing of the kind has ever been witnessed. 

When the Redeemer, in the institution of the The bread 

and wine in 

supper, declares of the bread that it is his body, Sent. sacra " 
and of the wine that it is his blood, we necessarily understand 
him to be speaking figuratively and symbolically. My 


6 Dobie. 


128 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


senses distinctly see, taste, smell, and feel that the sacra- 
mental elements are nothing but real bread and wine. If the 
Scriptures really taught the Popish doctrine of transubstan- 
tiation they would declare a falsehood, which would be 
quite sufficient by itself to destroy their authority. If my 
senses may deceive me, how shall I convince myself that I 
ever saw a book called the Bible, or read it, or ever heard of 
such a being as Jesus Christ.” 6 

Thus says the spiritual and learned Augustine, a bishop of 
Augustine on the Church before it became corrupted, upon 

the body and 

blood. the passage in St. John’s Gospel in reference to 

eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ : “ It ap- 
pears to order a wicked and abominable action ; it is, there- 
fore, a figure teaching that we must communicate with our 
Lord’s passion, and have it sweetly and properly laid up in 
our memory that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us.” 

"We may readily decide whether a passage is figurative or 
How to know literal by asking the question : If the words are 

a figurative .*2 

expression. taken just as they stand, will the idea expressed 

be true, or contrary to experience and the nature of things ? 

When Jesus calls his disciples his sheep, we cannot doubt 

that, by a significant figure, he suggests his affection for 

The disciples them and his care of them, and their confidence 

the “sheep” 

of Jesus. j n an( j attachment to him; and, also, the quali- 
ties of temper and character that he expects to find in them. 
Thus, sin is called in Scripture a debt ; atonement, the pay- 
ment of a debt ; pardon, the forgiveness of a debt. These are 
not literal terms, but figures of speech suggesting spiritual 


6 M'Lelland. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


129 


truths. We may not hold these terms to a rigid construction, 
and maintain that because Christ died for man’s These figures 

must not be 

sin, therefore all will be finally saved ; or, that "trued. con * 
because he has obeyed the law, therefore sinners are tree to 
live in sin. Men are represented in the Bible to be dead in 
sin, but they are not dead in such a sense as to be unable to 
see and feel the truth ; neither are they free from the duty of 
repentance ; nor are they guiltless if they disregard the 
divine call. More errors, probably, have arisen from pushing 
figurative expressions to an extreme than from any other 
single cause ; and against this tendency the sober, earnest 
student of the Bible needs to be specially on his guard. 7 

In the well-known passage, Romans vi, 4, “ Therefore we 

are buried with him by baptism into death,” it Buried with 

him by bap- 

is contended by some that Paul intends to teach tism - 
absolutely the doctrine that baptism is a symbol of the burial 
of Christ, and that, therefore, it must be performed by immer- 
sion, which is a literal burial of the whole person in the 
water. “But if the strictly literal sense of the word ‘buried’ 
is to be insisted on, then, for the same reason, we insist that 
when Paul says in the next verse, ‘for if we have been 
“planted together in the likeness of his death,’ he means that 
we must in some way be put into the ground, or literally 
planted like trees. Neither in the one case nor in the 
other is the language here to be taken literally. The mean- 
ing of the apostle is seen in his object. He is insisting upon 
holiness of life in Christians. One of his arguments is taken 
from the fact of their baptism. He says : ‘ They were buried 

7 Bible Hand-Book: Angus. 

0 


130 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


with Christ in baptism,’ not intending to describe the mode 

but the fact of their baptism, and to affirm that thereby they 

were consecrated to Christ and pledged to his service. On 

this fact he insists, saying, ‘ that as Christ, being once dead 

and buried, was raised up to life again by the power of God, 

so they, being baptized, should be holy, and walk in newness 

Thefigurenot of life.’ The words buried and planted are, there- 
decisive of 

baptism*? 6 ° f fore, used figuratively, and must be so under- 
stood, and consequently they have nothing to do with the 
mode of baptism.” 8 If it should be said that, admitting it 
to be figurative, still it refers to a material fact, and was 
apparently suggested by the similarity between the grave 
and the covering of the body by the water, thus denoting the 
mode of baptism in apostolic times ; it may be answered that 
no absolute and specific mode could be predicated upon the 
figure, for immediately after another one is introduced, utterly 
different, and yet intended to symbolize the same idea. 

Remark 2. We may be assured , if the letter of any Scrip- 
ture seems to violate our moral sense , or to contradict another 
The meaning moral precept, it cannot be intended to have its 

must not con- 

sense?* m ° ral ordinary sense. When Christ says, “ If any man 
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, he 
what Christ cannot be my disciple,” he does not intend to 

intended by 

andmother? r teach us that we must break the fourth com- 
mandment. Every human instinct which God has implanted 
in the heart would revolt against such a rendering. Christ 
simply uses the strongest earthly figure to express our super- 
eminent obligation to him. As much as we rightly love our 
8 Dobie, In Key to the Bible. 


THE WORD OP GOD OPENED. 


131 


parents, we sliould love him more. Nothing but duty to 
Christ can come between the perfect obedience of the child 
to the reasonable commands of a parent. 

A literal rendering of the command in Matt, xviii, 9, “ to 
cut off the right hand and pluck out the right 

° r & Cutting off 

eye,” would be a breach of the spirit of the sixth the hand * 
commandment; while Christ simply teaches that whatever 
stands between a soul and its duty, as revealed by the Holy 
Spirit, is to be surrendered, even if the self-denial is as pain- 
ful as the loss of an eye or a hand. “Put a knife to thy 
throat, if thou be a man given to appetite,” as written in 
Prov. xxiii, 2, is not an exhortation to suicide, but a warning 
against gluttony. 

“In Luke x, 4 Christ commands his disciples ‘not to salute 
(during one of their missionary journeys) any by 
the way,’ a precept which our Quaker brethren precepts- 
obey to the letter. But Christ could never have intended to 
inculcate rudeness ; it must therefore mean, ‘ Do not lose 
time by holding unnecessary intercourse with your friends ; 
use all expedition in journeying to the scene of your labors.’ 
Equally absurd is their well-known exposition of the pre- 
cept, ‘ when smitten on the one cheek, turn the other also,’ 
as if our Saviour disapproved of self-defense.” 9 

In Rom. v, 19 we read, “ For as by one man’s disobedience 
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of 
one shall many be made righteous.” If we in- slnners - 
terpret this verse literally we are at once forced to trample 
upon our moral intuitions as to right and wrong. We 


0 M’Lelland. 


132 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


cannot force our moral natures to admit the justice of 
making men sinners, on account of the sin of another, with- 
out their knowledge or consent. “ Such a sense is contrary 
to the known nature of man as a free agent. That nature is 
such that he cannot be made a sinner but by his own per- 
sonal and voluntary choice. Besides, the terms of justifica- 
tion through the merits of Christ are such that no man can 
partake of its benefits save by a personal and voluntary faith 
in him. If, therefore, men are not made righteous through 
Christ except on condition of their voluntary faith, neither, 
in all fairness, are they made sinners through Adam except 
on condition of their breaking the divine law through the 


free choice of their own wills. Whatever meaning, therefore, 
may be affixed to the passage it must be one that shall con- 
sist with the nature of man and with the nature of sin, for it 
is a primary principle that the Scriptures every where speak 
in harmony with the nature of the objects of which they 
treat.” 10 

The Bible does not draw nice theological and metaphysi- 
cal distinctions. The apostle simply teaches that as our 
moral nature is overthrown and disorganized 

What the apos- 0 

tie teaches. through our descent from a fallen and sinful 

man, and moral beings from their first volitions are sinful, 

so that moral nature is restored and sanctified by the coming 

into it of the Lord Jesus. When he is admitted into the 

heart the lost balance is restored, and the acts are righteous. 

Christ made Of ^ ie same class is the Scripture found in 
sm foi us. g Cor. 21, “ For he hath made him to be sin 


1 0 Dobie. 


THE WORD OP GOD OPENED. 


133 


for us, who knew no sin.” Here would be a positive contra- 
diction to all the known nature of things if the words were 
taken literally. Our sinless Lord could not by any possi- 
bility be made to be sin. He is made, however, .to be a sin 
offering — an expiatory sacrifice for our sin — so that we, peni- 
tently trusting in him, may be accounted as if we were 
righteous before God. 

The passage in Prov. xvi, 4, where it is said, “ The Lord 
hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the 
day of evil,” has been thought by some to teach The wicked 

made for the 

the forbidding doctrine that the wicked were day of evil, 
created that they might be condemned ; but this would be 
contrary to every conviction of justice, and to manifold other 
Scriptures, such as Psa. cxlv, 9 ; Ezek. xviii, 23 ; 2 Peter iii, 9. 
The meaning, therefore, must be that all evil shall in some 
way contribute to the glory of God, and promote the accom- 
plishment of his will. 

There are many things that the Bible reveals which tran- 
scend human thought, but nothing contradictory to the 
moral nature which God has given us if it Nothing con- 

tradictory to 

comes within the bounds of our knowledge and uons! conv ' c ' 
experience. No man is required to do injustice to his en- 
lightened convictions of right and wrong by any requisition 
which the sacred record makes upon his faith or practice. 

Remark 3. When the literal interpretation is contrary to 
universal experience its meaning must be modified ; when contra 

as when a passage of Scripture states absolutely sal to experi- 
ence must be 

what is a general truth, but has often exceptions, modified. 
Thus Solomon says in Prov. xxii, 6, “Train up a child in 


134 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


the way lie should go, and when he is old he 

Training of a J 

chlld - will not depart from it.” This is not always 

true. The verse means this is the tendency of such training, 
although the apparent exceptions, after all, may be very often 
attributed to some failure in parental training even in the 
case of very devoted and estimable persons. In 

A soft answer. 

Prov. xv, 1 it is said, “ A soft answer turnetli 
away wrath.” This is its tendency, although certainly in every 
case this is not the result. And so when Paul declares that 
the “goodness of God leadeth to repentance,” he 

The goodness 

of God. states a general truth. This is its inclination; 

but how many resist it to their own destruction ! So, also, 
when we are commanded by our Lord to “ take no thought 
Taking no for the morrow,” and by the apostle to “pray 

thought, and 1 r J 

out y ceasing h " without ceasing,” the natural modifications of 
the literal signification of the words are so evident that no 
one can fail to perceive them. In John i, 11, 12 it is said, 
His own re- “ He came unto his own, and his own received 

ceived him 

not. bim not.” It might seem from this that not one 

of his own nation received him. The next sentence, however, 
suggests the scriptural modification, “But as many as re- 
ceived him,” comparatively few received him. 

Remark 4. We shall consider in another chapter the 
interpretation of the poetic books, and of prophecy. Noth- 
ing can be more evident than that the latter cannot be 
understood literally. Hundreds have attempted it. Sys- 
interpreting terns of hermeneutics have been prepared pur- 

prophecy must 

not be literal, porting to give the exact significance of pro- 
phetic symbols. In our own country incalculable evil has 


THE WOliD OF GOD OPENED. 


135 


been brought upon the cause of Christ; especially upon 
local Churches and individuals led away by the sincere but 
mistaken opinions of teachers who have ventured upon a 
literal rendering of prophecy. 

These are the natural exceptions, arising out of the idioms 
and customs of speaking of the times, to the principle of the 
rule, but in no measure affecting its value as a broad canon 
for our guidance in the interpretation of the sacred writings. 

Rule II. 

In settling the meaning of words we must have 
respect chiefly to the current sense or established 
usage at the time they were uttered, rather than 
to their etymology. 

The importance of this rule is obvious even in the inter- 
pretation of a book written in our own language two or 
three hundred years since. Thus the word villain, which at 
the present time signifies an extremely depraved person, 

formerly meant the poor serf attached to the changes in 
J our own Ian- 

villa or farm of a proprietor. As they were e«age. 
ignorant, and generally dishonest and dissolute, when the 
original relation ceased, the term was applied to such a 
character as they "were accustomed to exhibit. In our En- 
glish version of the Scriptures we find the word let , which 
now signifies to permit, used as it formerly was in the sense 
of hindering. 11 

The term prevent, now usually signifies to restrain, but in 


” Romans i, 18. 


136 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


the Scripture it often has its appropriate meaning, as derived 
from the Latin, to come before, or to anticipate. Thus the 
psalmist says : “ But unto thee have I cried, O Lord ; and in 
the morning shall my prayer prevent (or come before) thee.” 12 
An Englishman speaks of a man as d&oer, meaning that he 
is capable, dexterous; while we generally use the term as 
expressing amiableness and good nature. 

In Gal. vi, 2 we are directed to “ bear one another’s bur- 
dens, and so fulfill the law of Christ;” while immediately 
As to bearing after, in the fifth verse, we are told that “ every 

mil* Awn q r» il ' ' 


our own and 
others’ bur- 
dens. 


one shall bear his own burden.” The context 


throws some light upon the different uses of the same term, 
indicating that one is the burden of one’s trials and infirmi- 
ties, which may readily be shared in by others, while the 
other is the burden of his personal responsibility, or the 
burden of his personal state and destiny, which he must bear 
himself alone. In the original terms used to express these 
two burdens the difference is at once seen. The burdens 
which we are to bear for one another are expressed by a 
Greek word signifying the weights , the things which press 
like loads upon those who come in contact with them ; but 
the burden which each one is to bear for himself is expressed 
by two words which signify his own baggage, the solemn 
personal accountability which God has laid upon him. Dr. 
Fairbaim gives an interesting illustration of this rule in the 
interpretation of 2 Cor. xii, 9. The apostle here says that he 
The import of would most willingly rather glorv in infirmities, 

‘ t.hfi nnwpr of ° J ° J ’ 


“the power of 
Christ resting 
upon one.” 


“ that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” 


12 Psalm lxxxviii, 18. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


137 


which sentence but imperfectly presents the force and signifi- 
cation of the original. The verb employed, translated may 
rest , belongs to the later Greek, and is found in Polybius in 
the sense of dwelling in a tent, or inhabiting. The word, 
however, can only be explained by referring to what is said 
in the Old Testament Scriptures (which was familiar to the 
apostle) of the relation of the Lord’s tabernacle or tent to his 
people; for example, as where it is written in Isa. iv, 6, 
“And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day- 
time from the heat,” signifying the Lord’s gracious presence 
and protection spread over them as a shelter. So, also, in 
Rev. vii, 15 the Lord is represented as “ tabernacling upon ” 
the redeemed in glory. In like manner the apostle here 
states it as the reason why he would rejoice in infirmities, 
that thereby Christ’s power might tabernacle upon him — 
might serve him, so to speak, as the abiding refuge and 
divine resort in which he could hide himself. 

Archbishop Leighton calls attention to the expressive 
word used to denote God’s opposition to the proud. God 
resistetli the proud ; sets himself in battle array ^ j 

x 1 God resisting 

(for this is the force of the word) against pride, the proud ‘ 
as if it were his grand enemy. 13 

The Jews frequently expressed a qualifying thought by the 
use, not of an adjective, but of a second noun, a practice which 
is also seen in the Hebrew Greek of the New Testament. 
In 2 Cor. i, 5 Paul says, the “sufferings of Christ abound 
in us.” This is a very common idiom of the Scriptures. It 
means, not the sufferings experienced by Christ himself, but 
13 Fairbairn’s Hermeneutical Manual. 


138 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


those which we suffer for him. Thus, when the apostle calls 
himself a prisoner of Christ, he means that he was 

Hebraisms. . 

imprisoned for his belief in Chnst. In various 
chapters of Romans Paul speaks of the “ righteousness of 
God,” by which he plainly signifies, not the excellency of the 
divine nature, but the righteousness by which the sinner is 
justified, and which he calls God’s righteousness, because he 
graciously provided the means of its attainment, and accepts it. 
All this is in accordance with the Hebrew idiom, which em- 
ploys the genitive (or possessive case) in the place of an adjec- 
tive, as where the apostle speaks of the “patience of hope” for 
patient hope , the “ glory of his power ” for his glorious power. 

Things are sometimes said to be done which are only 
Things said to attempted, or where there is an endeavor or 

be done which 

tempted 1 . 7 at desire to do them. Reuben is said to “have 
delivered Joseph out of the hands of his brethren.” He 
sought to do so, although he failed in his purpose. “ "Whoso 
findeth his life,” says our Saviour, “ shall lose it,” that is, 
seeks to find or save it — is unduly anxious — at the expense of 
duty. Sometimes an act is said to be done by a person 
when he is simply the occasion of it. Thus Jeremiah declares 
One who oc- (xxxviii, 23) that God says to the unhappy king 

casionsan act 

said to do it. Zedekiah, that he shall be taken by the hand of 
the king of Babylon, and shall “ cause Jerusalem to be burnt 
with fire.” The conduct of Zedekiah led to this mournful 
result at the hand of the king of Babylon. He did not order 
Jerusalem to be burned, but it was burned on his account. 
This explains the apparent discrepancy between Matthew’s 
and Luke’s account of the purchase of the “ field of blood.” 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


139 


The former states that it was bought by the priests and 
elders with the money that Judas returned to them ; the 
latter, in Acts i, 18, says: “This man [Judas] purchased a 
field with the reward of iniquity.” In this case he was the 
occasion of the purchase, and according to the current habit 
of speech, was said to liaye made it himself. 

That which is difficult or inconvenient or unjust was often 
said to be impossible, as when in Ruth iv, 6, the 

Things said to 

kinsman of Elimelech says, “ I cannot redeem his be impossible, 
inheritance.” He had property enough to do it, but it was 
inconvenient for him to assume the necessary obligations. 
"When the householder in our Lord’s parable was called at 
midnight to give admission to a friend, he replies : “ The 
door is shut, the children are with me in bed, and I cannot 
rise and give.” He means, it would be a great discomfort for 
him to do so. So, when in Mark vi, 5 it is said of our Lord 
that “ he could there do no mighty work because of their 
unbelief,” it is meant that he could not consistently or justly, 
or from the fact that their unbelief kept them from coming 
to him so that he might save them. 

This suggestion will aid in the understanding of that large 
class of Scriptures which refer to God as causing Explains pas- 
us to “err from” his “ways,” “hardening” our act^GT 
“ hearts,” “ shutting the eyes ” of sinners, and making their 
“ ears heavy,” lest they “ should see with their eyes and hear 
with their ears.” What God has in wisdom and in love per- 
mitted , or what has occurred in the operation of laws which 
he has established, he is said, in this familiar idiom, to have 
done. He “hardened Pharaoh’s heart ,' n by permitting him to 


140 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


harden himself through neglect of those very means which 
serve, when properly improved, to soften and subdue the 
affections. 

Sometimes the names of parents or ancestors are used in 
the Scriptures for their posterity. Thus in Gen. ix, 25, it is 
The parents’ written, “ Cursed be Canaan but the curse fell 

names used 

ants. descend not upon himself; it rested upon his sinful pos- 
terity. This curse, it should be recollected, did not rest 
upon his righteous descendants, for both Melchisedek and 
Abimelech were Canaanites, as was the -woman who came to 
Christ, and whose daughter was healed. 14 In the same way 
Jacob and Israel are often put for the Israelites, as in 
Psa. xiv, 7. The word “ son ” is often used in reference to a 
remote ancestor, as the priests were called the sons of Levi. 

Brother is used in the same way, as referring to 

Brother means * ° 

a relative. an y collateral relation. Abraham applies the 
term to Lot, who was his nephew. Jair is called the son of 
Manasseh, because his grandfather had married the daughter 
of one of the heads of Manasseh. Mary, the mother of our 
Lord, is also thought to have descended from David in this 
way, so that our Lord was David’s son, not only through his 
reputed father, but by direct descent through his mother. 
Modern biblical scholars suppose Joseph and Mary to have 
been distant relatives. In 2 Kings viii, 26 Athaliali is called 
the daughter of Omri, while in the eighteenth verse of the 
same chapter she is called the daughter of Ahab. She was 
Ahab’s daughter and Omri’s granddaughter. 

These illustrations simply indicate the importance of this 
1 4 Genesis xiv, IS ; xx, 6 ; Matthew xv, 22-28. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


141 


rule, and will suggest to the young interpreter the value of a 
good critical commentary to give him the exact y ^ 

meaning of Scripture terms according to the lcalnotes - 
usus loquendi , the current sense, of the times in which they 
were uttered. 

Rule III. 

To the utmost extent that it can be secured by 
reference to parallel passages, and especially to the 
context and other portions of Scripture written by 
the same sacred penman, the Bible should be made 
its own expositor. 

By parallel passages are meant those teaching the same 
doctrine, or relating the same facts ; passages of 

Jr ctTclJlGl pRS* 

the Old Testament alluded to in the New, as sages ’ 
illustrations, or as prophecies fulfilled ; portions of the 
Scriptures where the same terms are used under other cir- 
cumstances, showing the various significations given by the 
sacred writers to the terms they use. Our reference 

Reference 

Bibles, one of which should always be in the hands Blble- 
of a teacher, have accumulated a valuable collection of col- 
lated texts. But much will remain for the Bible scholar 
himself to do in this direction. Many of the passages in a 
reference Bible have but the most remote, if any, relation to the 
Scripture they are said to be the parallel of, and many more 
a diligent student will collate by the aid of the concordance 
for his own benefit. It is wonderful how, in skillM hands, 
the Bible can be made to pour inspired light upon its own 
difficult j^assages. 


142 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


“I will not scruple to assert,” says tlie learned Bishop 
Bishop Hors- Horsley, “ that the most illiterate Christian, if 

ley upon com- 

Scriptures. ° f he can but read his English Bible, and wall take 
the pains to read it in this manner (studying the parallel 
passages) without any other commentary than what the 
different parts mutually furnish for each other, will not only 
attain all that practical knowledge which is necessary to 
salvation, but will become learned in every thing relating to 
his religion in such a degree that he will not be liable to be 
misled, either by the refuted arguments or the false assertions 
of those who endeavor to engraft their own opinions upon 
the oracles of God. He may safely be ignorant of all philos- 
ophy and all history which he does not find in the sacred 
books.” 

It is by comparing Scripture with Scripture that we 

in this way become sure of the true meaning of particular 

meaning 11 of passages, and especially are able to ascertain the 
Scripture doc- ° 1 

trme. doctrines of the Bible on questions of faith and 

practice. “A Scripture truth is really the consistent expla- 
nation of all that Scripture teaches in reference to the question 
to be examined, and a Scripture duty is the consistent ex- 
planation of all the precepts of Scripture on the duty exam- 
ined. It is in studying the Scriptures as in studying the 
works of God. We first examine each fact or phenomenon, 
and ascertain its meaning, and then classify it with other 
similar facts, and attempt to explain the whole.” 15 From 
Error of the no ^ studying their sacred books in this way the 
Jews made their great mistake in rejecting 


18 Angus. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


143 


Christ. “We have heard out of the law,” they say, “that 
Christ abideth forever:” (this truth had been revealed in 
Isa. ix, 7, and in Daniel vii, 14 :) “ and how sayest thou,” they 
inquire, that “ the Son of man must be lifted up ? ” The 
Messiah’s everlasting kingdom had indeed been foretold, 
but it had also been prophesied that he should be “ brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter,” and that he should be “ cut off, 
though not for himself.” 16 

Care must be taken to be assured that we are comparing 

the same terms. Sometimes the original word care in com- 
paring like 

has several meanings given to it, and these, terms, 
if we are assured that the term is the same, will essentially 
aid us in coming to the general meaning of the word. For 
instance, the word “ baptize ” in Mark vii, 4 is 

Import of the 

used to mean simply washing the hands; in word baptize. 
1 Cor. x, 2 it expresses the act of faith in Moses, which the 
Hebrews exhibited when they went down under the cloud 
into the vacant channel of the sea ; in Luke iii, 16 it is made 
to express in the same verse the application of water by John 
and the outpouring upon the heads and hearts of Christ’s 
disciples of the Holy Ghost ; in Luke xii, 50 our Saviour 
uses the word to signify the agonies which he is about to 
suffer in the garden and upon the cross. Whatever, therefore, 
may be the exact and radical meaning of the word, the Scrip- 
tures themselves clearly show that it has a number of collat- 
eral significations to be determined by the context, and 
therefore cannot of itself be used in limiting to one mode the 
application of water in Christian baptism. 

>« Isa. liii, 7, S; Dan. ix, 26. 


144 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


“ In reading Acts ii, 21,” says Angus, “ we find it said that 
How to prac- ‘ Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord 

tically use 

sages! eI Pas * shall be saved ;’ and the question may be asked, 
What is meant by calling upon the name of the Lord ? 
Matthew tells us that ‘ not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ so that the passage 
is not to be understood in its literal and restricted sense. 
On referring to Rom. 11-14, and 1 Cor. i, 2, w T e find that 
this language, which is quoted from, the prophet Joel, 
implied an admission of the Messiahship, of Christ, and 
reliance on the doctrines which he revealed.” The im- 
port of the declaration contained in 1 Sam. xiii, 14, and 
Acts xiii, 22, that David was “a man after God’s own 
heart,” is explained by 1 Sam. ii, 35, where it is said, “ I 
will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according 
to that which is in mine heart” which shows the meaning 
to be that David, in his official conduct, would carry out 
the divine will. 

In Joel xi, 28, among the attendant blessings upon Mes- 
siah’s reign, it is promised, “ I will pour out my Spirit upon 
all flesh.” Should one desire to know how broad is the 
application of this promise he may turn to Gen. vi, 12, and 
read that “ all flesh had corrupted his way,” which clearly 
shows that the term flesh thus used refers to all mankind ; 
but flesh sometimes means tender and teachable, as in Ezgk. 
xi, 19, “I will give you a heart of flesh,” is opposed to a heart 
of stone. Its more common meaning in the New Testament 
is corrupt and sinful human nature, as in Rom. viii, 5, “ for 
they that arc after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.” 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


145 


It sometimes signifies, as in Gal. vi, 12, iii, 3, outward cere- 
monies as compared with inward holiness. 

In 1 Cor. vii, 1 Paul says, “ It is not good for a man to 
marry but in the twenty-sixth verse he explains his seeming 
contradiction of the divine assertion that “ it is not good 
that the man should be alone,” by saying, “It is good for 
the present distress ” that man should not marry. Marriage 
is an excellent thing, but may be inexpedient in times of 
severe persecution. 

Sometimes the sacred 'writers use terms with a very differ- 
ent signification. This must not be. overlooked Terms some- 
times differ- 

in their comparison. Thus in the epistles of entiyused. 

Paul the term “ works,” when it stands by itself, is used to 

signify the opposite of faith, the performance of legal duties, 

as the ground of salvation. In James the expression always 

means the obedience and holiness which flow from faith. In 

the one case works are inconsistent with [as the ground of] 

salvation, in the other they are essential to it. 17 

The different writers of the Gospels supplement each 

other, and the parallel statements of the same Gospel wri- 
ters suppie- 

events, when correctly collated, add great inter- ™|er. each 
est to the recitals, and aid in their mutual interpretation. 18 

17 Angus. 

18 To show the additional light and interest which the introduction of the 
parallel passages in the Gospel throw upon the events which they relate, 
Dean Alford refers to the accounts of the transfiguration. We learn from Luke 
the very significant truth “ that it was as Jesus prayed that the fashion of his 
countenance was altered.” So we read that he was praying at his baptism 
(Luke iii, 21) when the Holy Ghost descended on him. So, too, it is noticed in 
this Gospel that he continued all night in prayer. In a peculiar manner St. 
Luke brings out this remarkable habit of our Lord in his Gospel. But also in 

10 


146 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


“ In Matt, vii, 13,” says Dr. Doedes, “ it is evident to every 
The strait one wlio pays close attention to the expression, 
way. ° f the ‘ Enter ye in,’ that we must not think of the way 
as being behind the gate, as if it were written, Go ye out at 
the strait gate, etc. No ; we must think of this gate or 
entrance as being at the end of that way. The way is not 
mentioned first, because the gate, as entrance, [to heaven,] is 
the main subject. To those now who do not understand it 
thus, and, therefore, place the gate at the commencement of 
the way, Luke, in chapter xiii, 24, 25, renders good service, 
where the gate is the same as the entrance, and this can only 
be thought of as at the end of the way.” 19 
The context is to be carefully examined to discover the 
Context to be meaning of the inspired penman in particular 

carefully ex- 
amined. passages. Thus, in Rom. vi, 23, the meaning of 

the word “ death ” (the wages of sin) is clearly shown from 

its opposite, “ the gift of God is eternal life , through Jesus 

Christ our Lord.” In James ii, 14 the faith that cannot save 

is explained to be the faith that exhausts itself in words, and 

not in deeds. It is a faith without obedience, such a faith as 


his narrative of the transfiguration, “ we learn what it was on which the three 
glorified ones conversed on the holy mount: his decease which he should accom- 
plish at Jerusalem. Thus does the incident of the transfiguration acquire a 
holy significance in our Lord’s history, which we should not otherwise be able 
to attach to it He is now passing into the shadow of his Passion, and the 
blessed glorified ones are permitted to come and solace his human soul with 
mention of the sufferings he was to undergo, and the glory which should follow. 
The transfiguration is the gilded edge of that dark cloud into which the Son 
of God was entering for our sakes.” — ITow to Study the New Testament , 
page 92. 

,B Hermeneutics of the New Testament, page 102. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


147 


devils feel, (verse 19;) but it is not such as Abraham ex- 
perienced, (verse 23.) 

In 1 John iii, 9 it is said, “'Whosoever is born of God doth 
not commit sin.'” But on comparing this expression with 
other parts of the epistle we find that to commit sin here 
means “ to walk in darkness,” i, 6 ; “ not to keep the com- 
mandments,” ii, 4 ; “ to hate his brother,” ii, 9 ; “to love 
the world,” ii, 15, expressions that bespeak settled habits, 
habits alien to the spirit of a Christian. 20 

The affecting and beautiful words of the Psalmist in the 
forty-second psalm might upon the first reading seem to 
portray the longing desire of the writer to enjoy the presence 
of his God in the eternal world : 

‘‘As the hart panteth after the water-brooks 

So panteth my soul after thee, O God ! 

20 Angus. Dean Alford expresses the severest reprehension of the indolent 
custom of stringing together in proof of Scripture doctrine passages of the Holy 
Record, and thus giving to them a signification that could not he sustained by 
an examination of their contexts. “ The utmost that seems to be expected,” he 
remarks, “ even from the clergy themselves, is to be able to affirm that the 
Scripture says so and so. But what Scripture says it ? with what intent ? how 
far, in the words quoted, is the context duly had in regard ? do they or do they 
not rightly represent the sense of the original ? these things not one clergy- 
man in ten seems to take into account, still less those laymen who would he 
ashamed to quote in the same slovenly manner any of the well-known classical 
authors. And as to ordinary English readers of the Gospels, it is not too much 
to say that the way in which they use them seems to proceed on the assump- 
tion that there is but one Gospel, not four ; that that one has been delivered 
down to us entire and indisputable in every point, and in one form, and that 
form the English version as published by King Jamos’s translators .”— How to 
Study the Neto Testament. The satisfactory reliance upon the English version 
is far from being so serious an evil as the quoting of passages out of their 
connections, and thus forcing them to sustain a doctrine never intended by the 
inspired Author. 


148 


THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 


My soul thirsteth for God, the living God : 

When shall I come and appear before God ? 

My tears are my meat day and night, 

While it is said continually, Where is thy God ? ” 

But the fourth verse of the psalm shows that the devout 

David sighing king, deprived of the privileges of the sanctuary 

for God’s 

house. by the rebellion of his son Absalom, which had 

driven him from Jerusalem, wrote these words to express his 
inward panting for the beloved services of God’s earthly 
courts : 

“ When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me ; 
For I had gone with the multitude, 

I went with them to the house of God, 

With the voice of joy and praise, 

With a multitude that kept holy day.” 


The one hundred and tenth psalm describes the victorious 
progress of an illustrious prince greatly honored by God, 
and exalted to his right hand. The first three verses leave 
one in doubt whether the poet speaks of David or another 
and far greater personage, as the sitting at God’s right hand 
may be figurative : 


Messianic 

Psalms. 


“Jehovah said unto my Lord, 

Sit thou at my right hand, 

Until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 

Thy powerful scepter Jehovah sends out of Zion: 
Eule in the midst of thy foes.” 


But the fourth verse settles the question : 

“Jehovah hath sworn and will not repent: 

Thou art an everlasting priest 
Of the order of Melchisedek.” 

David was no priest, nor could any Hebrew monarch 
assume the office without heaven-daring profanity. The 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


149 


strange and (to the Jew) astounding phenomenon of a 

“priest upon a throne” directs us at once to David’s Son 

and Lord. The application of this simple test will enable 

the plainest Christian to detect the psalms called Messianic 

at a glance. They all embody in their representations such 

remarkable incidents and traits of personal character as 

make it impossible to apply them, without the grossest 

impropriety, to any but the “ Anointed of the Father.” 21 

In gathering proof texts to sustain any supposed doctrine of 

Scripture great care should be taken to examine Care in gath- 
ering parallel 

the context of each quotation to see if the signifi- fhefr sensed 

, . . . . ._ , correctly de- 

cation which we give the passage is justified by termined. 

the sense, thus determined, in which it was used by the in- 
spired penmen. Any writer may readily be made to contra- 
dict himself, or to make the most extravagant assertions, by 
taking sentences out of their connection and giving to them a 

meanings' that thev may possibly bear, but ut- No doctrine 

° J should be 

terly opposed to the intention of the author, separate 15 ° n 

. clauses of 

Certainly no doctrine affecting faith and practice Scripture. 

should be built up on separate clauses of Scripture. 

A clergyman of the modern school of theology called 

“liberal,” in' preaching upon our Lord’s parable of the 

prodigal son, inquired, after he had passed through and 

illustrated its touching recitals, “ Where does the prodigal son 

and the 

atonement come in here? We see nothing of it,” atonement, 

he continued, “ as Jesus brings a penitent son to the Father s 
arms. He should know what is required, and he shows 
that all that is necessary is only that which a living earthly 


21 M’Lelland. 


150 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


father seeks, the penitent return of the child to the father’s 
house.” 

But this same Jesus, our Saviour, in his interview with 
Nicodemus, opens his discourse with the assertion, “ Except 
a man be born again — born of water and of the Spirit — he 
cannot see the kingdom of God.” He then explains to the 
wondering rabbi that this divine process is to be secured by 
looking upon the Son of man, who was to be “ lifted up ” as 
“ Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.” Here is 
where the atonement comes in ! but where does the prodigal 
son come in in this discourse ? 

These Scriptures present different aspects of the one grand 
and divine plan of redemption, each one teaching a vital 
truth, and both indispensable to lead a sinner to a reconciled 
God. The parable presents the paternal love of God, and the 
welcome with which the penitent sinner is met as he returns, 
confessing his sins, to a life of obedience and trust. The 
words of Jesus to the moral Jew exhibit the divine plan by 
which God can be just, through the interposition of a 
Redeemer, and still justify the sinner that believes in Jesus, 
and the indispensable office of the Holy Ghost in renewing 
the depraved heart. 

We need to collect together from the Scriptures all that 
is said upon a given doctrine before we declare its full 
intent and relation to the other elements of a divine life. 
In 1 Cor. xv, 22 we read, as already quoted, “For as in 
Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” On these 
words we sometimes find built up a theory of the moral and 
legal identity of our race with our first parents ; the text 


THE WORD OF GOI) OPENED. 


151 


affirms, such interpreters say, that all men die in Adam, there- 
fore all once lived and acted in him. Here is a moral and 
legal unity, they assert ; his sin was our sin, his guilt our 
guilt, his death our death. On the other hand, another class 
declares that the text teaches that salvation by Christ is as 
universal as death by Adam. Do not all men die ? they ask. 
Does not the text say death came by Adam ? What then, 
they inquire, as if the theory were proved beyond Ail dying kt 
a cavil, does the apostle mean, but that all are Christ. m 
saved in Christ ? Sure enough, what does he mean ? Read 
the context, and the answer cannot be mistaken. Paul is 
presenting the glorious doctrine of the resurrection of the 
body. In his argument he says, “ For since by man came 
death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead.” As 
by Adam came upon all men the sentence of death, so by the 
man Christ Jesus came upon all men the gift of resurrection 
from the dead. The apostle is writing simply upon the 
subject of the resurrection, and makes no reference either to 
the universal salvation of sinners or to the federal relation of 
all men to Adam. He states simply the obvious fact, that 
all men have died since Adam’s sin, and as a consequence of 
it ; but that the loss of life has been more than amply com- 
pensated by Christ’s giving it back again in the form of a 
resurrection to the world. As man is not necessarily lost, 
even though he may die on account of Adam’s sin, so he is 
not necessarily saved, although he may live forever, as a con- 
sequence of the interposition of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It must not be forgotten that the strongest meaning that 
can be placed upon Scripture terms is not always the writer’s 


152 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


acceptation of them ; but the context and parallel passages 

The strongest must determine this. Such words as perfect, per- 
nleaning not 

true one. the faction, holiness, sanctification, without sin, must 
be carefully considered in the light of their connections and of 
parallel Scriptures. It must be seen at once that all these 
terms, as predicated of finite and imperfect beings, cannot have 
an absolute signification. Because the words, as literally ren- 
dered, seem to afford strength to any position we have taken, 
we have no right to impose a sense upon them that never 
entered into the mind of the sacred writer. The context and 
parallel passages must be sought to enable us to weigh their 
meaning. The beautiful sentence in Jer. xxxi, 3, “I have 
Eternal <ie- loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with 

crees not 

jerfxxxi,3L loving kindness have I drawn tliec,” is sometimes 
made to teach the doctrine of eternal decrees, and the certain 
salvation of the elect; but God here simply assures the 
tribes of Israel of deliverance and protection on account of 
the love he bore them in former times, when with an out- 
stretched arm he brought them from the land of Egypt. In 
the familiar words found in Matt, xxii, 4, “ Many are called, 
but few chosen which have been so manv times 

Many called, J 

few chosen. quoted as excluding arbitrarily the unelect from 

the hope of salvation, the context clearly shows that the 
Saviour only teaches us that, while all are invited to the 
Gospel feast, few comparatively are admitted , simply from 
neglecting to secure the necessary and available qualifica- 
tions. 

The Church of Rome gives an amusing illustration of the 
error we are now considering. In their book of canon law, 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


153 


in the chapter relating to lay trustees of Church property, 
they say, “This is prohibited in the law of Church of 

Rome upon 

Moses, who says, ‘Thou shalt not plow with an ^o° x W and 
ox and an ass together that is, they shall not have laymen 
as trustees of Church property ! ” 

“ The phrase, ‘ Blot me out of thy book,’ (Exod. xxxii, 32,) 
has been made a test of Christian character, so 

“Blot me out 

that they who could not say they were willing of thy book ” 
to be eternally damned have been regarded as destitute of 
that submission which is the evidence of a new birth. But 
plainly it had no such force as used by Moses. He meant to 
say : ‘ Forget me ; take no account of me in respect to any 
thing proposed concerning the future destiny of thy people ; 
pass by me ; regard me as not written in thy book without 
any reference to eternal woe.” 22 
In reference to that most sublime of all revelations made 
to man, “ God manifest in the flesh,” no human presentation 
of the divine mystery can approach in impressiveness, or 
even in clearness, the utterances of the sacred writers. No 
argument setting forth the perfect humanity of ^ Chrigt Qf 
our Lord and his essential divinity can be so Scnpture ‘ 
effective as the collated passages of Holy Scripture. The 
Word of God becomes flesh before our eyes. We see the 
perfect human being growing in grace and favor with God 
_ and man ; eating, sleeping, weeping, tempted, praying ; and 
we also stand awed before Him who heals the sick, casts out 
devils, commands the waves and the "winds, and raises the 
dead. Surely he can be no other than Emmanuel, God with us. 


22 Dobic. 


154 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


These illustrations might be indefinitely multiplied, but 
they will serve to impress the young interpreter with the 
importance of a careful comparison of Scripture with Scrip- 
ture, and of a close examination of the context. 

Rule IV. 

Every Scripture must be interpreted in harmony 
with the analogy or rule of faith ; and where a 
passage admits of two possible renderings, that is 
to be preferred which best agrees with the general 
teachings of the writer, and is in harmony with all 
divine revelation. 

If the Bible is all inspired of the Holy Ghost its different 
parts must be in harmony with each other. 

Inspiration 

implies unity. There will be unity in the revelations made 
of God, of his plan of salvation, and of man’s condition 
without the Gospel, and under its influence. This is what 
is meant by the analogy, or general agreement, of faith. This 
has been more simply stated, to meet the obiection 

Analogy of r J J 

faith. that every distinct sect and every individual in- 

terpreter has his own standard of faith or belief, in this form : 
no interpretation is correct which makes a sacred writer 
contradict himself, or the well-ascertained sentiments of any 
of the rest. 23 The apostle Paul recognized this important 
rule when he exhorted the Roman brethren to prophesy or 
preach “ according to the proportion [or analogy] of faith.” 24 
The expression is identical with “ the whole tenor of Scrip- 


23 Doble. 


24 Romans xii, 6. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


155 


ture.” One Scripture passage may contain all that God has 
been pleased to reveal upon a given subject. It when one pas- 
certainly is not to be rejected because it stands tain adoctrine. 
alone, if there is nothing in its declaration, when clearly 
apprehended from its context, that opposes the general tenor 
of revelation. But it the apparent sense of a given passage 
is directly opposed to other Scriptures, or to the 

If one passage 

analogy of faith, an interpretation is to be sought oth’ersft 
for it which, without constraint to the literal ren- ™reted inlfar- 

mony with 

dering, will bring it into miity with the general them ‘ 
teaching of the Bible. It is the legitimate office of the 
learned expositor to consider and weigh and harmonize these 
apparent discrepancies. 

In 1 Cor. iii, 15 we read, “If any man’s work shall be 

burned, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself shall False founda- 
tion of Papal 

be saved so as by fire.” “ The modern doctrine ° f 

of purgatory, that is, that sin is purged by literal fire, is 
derived from this text. Not to insist on the meaning of 
these words as determined by their connection, we bring this 
modern doctrine of purgatory side by side with the grand 
system of doctrines concerning which there never has been 
any dispute ; and the conclusion to which we come is, that 
any such interpretation of the passage must be false, because 
it goes contrary to the doctrines of the new birth, of justifi- 
cation by faith, the merits of Christ’s atonement, the uniform 
doctrine of the Bible respecting the souls of the departed, 
and to many facts recorded both in the Old Testament and 
in the New.” 26 


28 Dobie. 


156 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


All those passages in the Scriptures which speak of God as 
Passages ^re- “ repenting,” or changing his mind, as coming 
ner of h men an down to observe what is passing upon the earth, 
etc., are to be interpreted in such a sense as to harmonize, with 
the revealed truth that God is a Spirit, omniscient, unerring, 
and everywhere present. In these Scriptures he simply 
speaks after the manner of men, and does what, if men did 
these things, would be predicable of them. All passages 
that seem to represent him as material, local, limited in 
knowledge or in power, are to be interpreted agreeably to 
the general tenor of Scripture as to his character and at- 
tributes. 

No undue w T rench is given to the sacred writings by such 
a course. The necessity arises out of the nature of things. It 
why God is is entirely reasonable and natural that God should 

thus spoken 

of. reveal himself in this wise. How can he mani- 

fest himself to us but by material figures and words that are 
necessarily limited in their application ? But while he mani- 
fests his sentiments and his acts in these finite forms he dis- 
tinctly declares his spiritual nature and his divine power 
and Godhead, so that an intelligent mind can readily inter- 
pret these human representations in accordance with the 
spiritual nature of God. 

We select from Dobie’s “ Key to the Bible ” two illustra- 
tions of the other application of the rule, that where two or 
of two or more meanings can be drawn from the text, that 

more mean- 
ings the one one is to be chosen which best agrees with the 

in harmony ® 

teachings' 6 ^} general teachings of the Scriptures. In Matt. 

the Bible to 

be chosen. xvi, ig we reac ] ) « And I say unto thee, that thou 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


157 


art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church ; and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” There are at 
least three distinct shades of meaning which these words 
may reasonably bear. 1. Upon such confessions as this that 
thou hast made of my Messiahship I will build my Church ; 
or, 2. Upon this truth that I am Messiah I will Reckon which 

Christ builds 

build my Church ; or, 3. By means of thee, Hs Church. 
Peter, a man of firm and resolute will, will I lay the founda- 
tion of the Church as a distinct community in the world. 
The first two are both consistent with all scriptural doc- 
trines, are perhaps most commonly received by interpreters, 
and many considerations may be urged in their favor ; but 
the last is in harmony with actual historical facts recorded 
in Acts ii, 14-36, and in chapter 10 of the same book, 
where, by Peter’s instrumentality, the Church, composed both 
of Jews and Gentiles, was established as a distinct body in 
the world. And such an announcement from the lips of our 
Lord, in the circumstances, was both appropriate and sig- 
nificant. It was just such an announcement as he was wont 
to make frequently of what the disciples were to endure and 
accomplish ; and we, therefore, prefer this last sense of the 
passage according to the spirit of the rule. The words of 
our Lord when recalled by Peter in the times of stern conflict 
through which he passed, would administer an unspeakable 
solace to his heart, and to the hearts of all the other disci- 
ples. But there is not one syllable in this text to justify the 
wild, foolish, and wicked pretenses of the Papal Church 
founded upon it. 

In James v, 20 it is written, “He that convertetli the 


158 


THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 


sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from 

death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.” This text will 

Covering a bear two renderings. 1. The soul saved, and 
multitude of 

sins. the multitude of sins that are hid, may refer to 

the person who reclaims his erring brother ; or, 2. They may 
refer to the brother reclaimed. If we adopt the first, the 
teaching of the apostle w r ould be, that he who reclaimed a 
brother from backsliding would save thereby his own soul, 
and hide a multitude of his ow r n sins. But does the apostle 
mean this? According to the rule we must consider the 
design of the writer and the general system of revealed 
truth. Our impression, upon consideration of the writer’s 
object and line of thought — showing the benefit that would 
accrue to others through devout and fervent prayer — and of 
the whole tenor of his teachings in his epistle, is, that his 
language refers to the person who is reclaimed, and that he 
holds it out as a motive to action in the work of reclaiming 
him. As respects the harmony of the first view with the 
analogy of faith there is no doubt it is wholly at variance 
with it. We are saved by faith in Christ, not by acts of 
kindness done to erring brethren. Hence we conclude the 
meaning of the passage is, He who reclaims a fallen brother 
is the means of saving a backslider’s soul, and of hiding his 
sins. This is consistent with the design of the writer, and 
with the general harmony of revelation. 

As a general remark in reference to what mav 

Difficulties of ° J 

dence oHheir be called the difficulties or contradictions of 

honesty, and 

for discour 1 Scripture, it may be said that they afford one 
agement. 0 f the best evidences that there was no collu- 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


159 


sion between the writers to secure absolute harmony ; that 
they never have been so serious as to discourage good men 
in their grateful task of studying out the means of their 
reconcilement ; that as knowledge has increased these diffi- 
culties have disappeared ; that no one, or collection of them, 
has been considered of so serious a moment as to allow the 
foes of the Bible to rest their objection to Scripture upon 
it ; but every new school of doubters has discarded the 
objections of others, and presented fresh ones of their own. 
Some of these difficulties arise out of the statistics of the Old 
Testament when quoted with apparent variations in the 

New, out of the comparison of genealogical occasion of 

these difficul- 

tables, and out of the relation of the same event ties - 
by two evangelists in different words, or the omission or 
introduction of some one feature of an occurrence by one of 
the Gospel writers. We have already alluded to the difficul- 
ties arising from the adjustment of the new developments of 
natural science with long received opinions in reference to 
the interpretation of the Bible. As the enemies of the Bible 
were never more active than at present in attempting to 

weaken the faith of Christians in their Holy Abundant an- 
swers to all 

Scriptures, so, by the good providence of God, difficulties, 
there was never a period when so many, and such in- 
telligent and learned pens, were interested in responding 
to these attacks. There has not been a difficulty or 
an apparent contradiction suggested that has not been 
examined. Every obstacle has been fairly looked in the 
face, and the literature of the Church is now rich in the 
clearest and most satisfactory defenses of the inspiration 


160 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

and essential harmony and purity of its volume of revealed 
truth. 

The precious works of a former age, such as those of 
Ancient and • Lardner and Home, have been by no means 
ogists. superseded, and can now be profitably consulted 

in reference to nearly every difficulty arising about or within 
the Scriptures. But our modem commentators, like 01- 
shausen, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Stier, Alford, Lange, 
Ellicott, Barnes, Whedon, and Hast, meet with great spirit, 
and with most satisfactory results, the latest imputations of 
error made by false friends or pronounced foes upon the 
sacred record. It would swell our book to undesirable pro- 
portions to introduce the more prominent difficulties of 
inspiration suggested by such sincere but unbalanced minds 

where an- as the author of a late w T ork upon the “ Human 
swers to ob- 

i e eSnd may Element in the Inspiration of the Scriptures.” 

Every difficulty, however, has been met, and may be found 

fully answered in such volumes as “Lee upon Inspiration,” 

and Garbett upon “ God’s Word Written.” 

Every young interpreter may safely assure himself that 

Maybeassur- somewhere, not far from his hand, in the litera- 
ed an answer 

found adllybe ture which the Master has inspired his disciples 
to place at the disposition of his Church, a convincing 
response can be found to every charge. It is proper, how- 
ever, to guard the teachers of others in this respect. Never 
venture upon the exposition of a scriptural difficulty without 
being satisfied that you have a clear and pertinent view of 
the objection or difficulty, and its answer. Nothing is more 
harmful than to leave upon an ingenuous young mind an 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


161 


unsatisfactory solution to an apparent difficulty Never give an 

. . unsatisfactory 

of Scripture. It is better to leave the difficulty answer. 

unanswered, with the presumption in the mind of the pupil 

that the trouble arises rather from want of knowledge in 


yourself than from any intrinsic contradiction in Scripture. 
Says Alford, dean of Canterbury, in reference to apparent 
discrepancies between the evangelists, “ We are certain that 
each of the Gospel narratives is, in the highest sense, true ; 
but we are not certain that we can by sight Dean Alford 

, . , , » upon discrep- 

assure ourselves, in each apparent case of dis- andes in the 

New Testa- 

crepancy, that it is so. I have elsewhere main- ment - 
tained, and I maintain here, that if we could know exactly 

how any given event related in the Gospels happened, we 

* 

should at once be able to account for the variations in the 
narratives, and the separate truth of each would be shown ; 
but not knowing the exact details of any event thus nar- 
rated, nor the position of the narrator with respect to it, we 
cannot undertake to reconcile apparent discrepancies between 
the evangelists. Our plain duty in making a right use of 
the Gospels is firmly and fearlessly to recognize these, and to 
leave them as fearlessly unsolved if no honest solution can be 
found. A way may be opened by and by in the process of 
human discovery, and the toil of human thought, or the time 
for a solution may not come till the day when all things shall 
be known.” 26 

Henry Rogers happily says, in substance, in his “ Greyson 
Letters:” “My second theory of dealing with Henry Rogers 

upon discrep- 

the apparent discrepancies of the Bible is a very andes. 


28 How to Study the New Testament, page 11. 

ii 


162 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


simple one, and not less admissible, namely, to let tliem 
alone ; to postpone them till further light is thrown upon 
them ; not to anticipate the true theory of them ; to refrain 
from pronouncing them either insoluble or otherwise. The 
general evidence for the Bible is such as to justify this delay. 
We can afford to wait. A Christian may say with justice, 

4 When I can solve these difficulties, I am glad ; when I can- 
not, I am willing to suspend my judgment ; they do not, they 
never can, (whatever be the solution,) shake the substantive 
credibility of the great facts and main statements of the 
scriptural documents ; adequate evidence against these must 
be an earthquake which shall subvert the very foundations 
of the faith and leave the whole fabric a wreck, not a flash 
of critical lightning, which grazes, or splinters, or even dis- 
lodges a stone or two in some remote turret or ornamental 
pinnacle. I can wait ; I can afford to wait ; no one hurries 
me; why should I be so incontinent of my opinion as to 
pronounce before I am sure that I have all the possible data ? 
Whether the discrepancies are ultimately to be disposed of 
by supposing something less than indefectible inspiration for 
every particle of canonical Scripture, or by finding that they 
yield, as so many others have already done , to more accurate 
recensions of the text, or more severe collation of the Scrip- 
ture with itself or with profane writers, or unexpected re- 
coveries of fragments of ancient history, I leave for a while ; 
for, either way, the things which must thus be left are but 
4 dust in the balance subtracted or added, they will not 
appreciably affect the result; and so, whether zealous Stephen 
really confounded the sepulcher which Jacob bought of the 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


163 


father of Shechem with that which Abraham bought of 
Ephron the Hittite or not, I shall magnanimously leave to 
future inquiries, and sleep none the worse for it.’ ” 27 

Rule V. 

The spiritual instruction intended to be imparted 
by the Holy Ghost should be carefully and earnest- 
ly sought in the interpretation of Scripture. 

Revelation is a book written in human language, and as a 

book is- to be interpreted according to the well-defined laws 

of language and grammar ; but it is a book, the The^ BiWe 

whole of which is indited for a special purpose, purpose? 601 * 1 

and of which inspiration itself affirms that it is all profitable 

“ for instruction in righteousness.” We are no advocates of a 

fanciful interpretation of the Bible. We do not believe in 

mystical significations, or in a manifold sense attributed to 

the sacred writings. We enjoin a strict gram- Not a fanciful 

nor mystical 

matical rendering of the text, as modified only meaning, 
by the current meaning of the language used by the writers 
themselves. But after the exact and literal meaning has 
been discovered, then comes the important inquiry, What 
is the spiritual lesson that God proposes to teach dQ g 

in this history, poetry, prophecy, ceremony, para- God teacl1 ? 
ble, miracle, and epistle? We do not by any means propose 
to spiritualize a secular event, to find types in persons not 
said in Scripture to be typical, but to ask, What lesson by 
this plain history, or by the sketch of this individual, would 
87 The Grayson Letters, page 461. 


164 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


the Holy Spirit have us learn ? Hagenbach, in speaking of 
the work of Emesti in introducing a new and literal school 
of biblical interpretation, remarks that his “ ground principle 
was simply this : to interpret the Bible according to its literal 
verbal sense, and to let the volume suffer neither at the hands 
of any assumed authority of the Church, nor of the feelings 
and wishes of individuals as to what they might choose to 
believe, nor of sportive and allegorizing fancy such as the 
mystics used to indulge in, nor of any philosophical system. 
He adopted in this the main principle of Hugo Grotius, who 
in the seventeenth century had similarly intrenched himself. 
Ernesti was a philologist. He had employed the same prin- 
ciples in the interpretation of the writers of Greece and Rome 
which he employed later in the interpretation of the Bible ; 
and he was right in this. The reformers had aimed to do 
the same thing. But he overlooked too much, perhaps, this 
fact — that in order to apprehend the religious truths of the 
Scriptures there is needed, not only a knowledge of their 
verbal and historical characteristics, but a spiritual appro- 
priation of their truths, so that one can enter livingly into 
the very heart of the Bible. Who would deny that, in order 
to understand an epistle of Paul, there must be a very dif- 
ferent manner of approaching and viewing it than would be 
needed with the letters of Cicero, since the whole circle of 
ideas is different in the two ? Religious writings can only be 
truly apprehended by a penetrating spirit, which can . strike 
through the whole web of grammar and logic to the funda- 
mental truth.” 28 




28 German Rationalism, Clark’s edition, page 76. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


165 


Westcott happily remarks : “When the interpreter of Scrip- 
ture has availed himself of every help which historical criti- 
cism can furnish for the elucidation of the text— when, by the 
exact investigation of every word, the most diligent attention 
to every variation of tense, and even of order, the clearest 

recollections of every phrase, he has obtained a Westcott up- 

7 on spiritual 

sense of the whole, perfect in its finer shades and t?on! Preta ’ 
local coloring, no less than in its general outline and effect — 
his work is as yet only half done. The literal sense is but 
the source from which the spiritual sense is to be derived ; 
but exactly in proportion as a clear view is gained of all that 
is special in the immediate object and position of each writer, 
it will be found that the simple record appears to be instinct 
■with divine life, for the external circumstances and mental 
characteristics of the writer are not mere accidents ; but inas- 
much as they influence his apprehension and expression of 
the truth, they become a part of his divine message, and the 
typical specialty which springs from this is the condition at 
once of the usefulness and of the universality of Scripture. 
The existence of an abiding spiritual sense underlying the 
literal text of the Old Testament is sufficiently attested by 
the quotations in the New. Unless it be recognized, many 
of the interpretations of the evangelists and apostles must 
appear forced and arbitrary ; but if we assume that it exists, 
their usage appears to furnish an adequate clew to the in- 
vestigation of its most intricate mazes.” 29 

Horne remarks in his “Introduction,” that the errors into 
which some have fallen in discovering fanciful rather than 
29 Introduction to the Study of the Gospels. 


166 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


spiritual revelations in the Scriptures is not a sufficient reason 
for rejecting a wholesome principle. It shouid not be cast 
Home on the away because it has been abused, “since human 

spiritual im- 
port o f Scrip- error can neyer invalidate the truth of God.” 

“ The literal sense,” he goes on to say, “ it has been well 
observed, is, undoubtedly, first in point of nature , as well as 
in order of signification ; and consequently, when investi- 
gating the meaning of any passage, this must be ascertained 
before we proceed to search out its spiritual import ; but the 
true and genuine, or spiritual, sense excels the literal in dig- 
nity, the latter being only the medium of conveying the 
former, which is more evidently designed by the Holy Spirit. 
For instance, in Hum. xxi, 8, 9, compared with John iii, 14, 
the brazen serpent is said to have been lifted up in order to 
signify the lifting up of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the 
world; and, consequently, that the type might serve to 
designate the antitype.” 

We have fully illustrated this rule in the previous chapter, 
when speaking of the requisition which the discovery of the 
spiritual lessons of Holy Scripture makes upon the biblical 
student for careful study. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


167 


CHAPTER VII. 


INTERPRETATION OF PARABLE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY. 


Parable. 


OME of the most interesting and instructive portions 



of the Gospels are embodied in the para- 


The parable. 


bles. It has been noticed that, while our Lord 
from the commencement of his public ministry was accus- 
tomed to speak in figurative language, as when he points to 
the lilies of the field, the fowls of the air, the new cloth upon 
an old garment, new wine in old bottles, yet his principal par- 

fillips utt6r6d 

discourses in parables were confined to the last during the 

last, year of 

year of his life. The parable has ever been a Christ’s life, 
favorite channel among Eastern people, and especially among 
Jewish teachers, for the conveyance of truth. But the para- 
bles of Jesus are distinguished from all others in their great 
simplicity, in their wonderful truth to nature, and in the 
significant spiritual lessons which they teach. 

Our Saviour may have adopted the parable to show the 
harmony between the laws of nature and the Reasons for 


using para- 


doctrines of the Gospel, thus presenting an in- kies, 
direct evidence that they both came from the same Author. 
Thus the sower of natural and spiritual seed labors under 
nearly the same general laws of success. 

Tholuck remarks “ that the Author of the spiritual king- 
dom is also the Author of the natural kingdom, and both 


168 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


kingdoms develop themselves after the same laws. For this 
reason, the similitudes which the Redeemer drew from the 
. . kingdom of nature are not mere similitudes 
the kingdoms which serve the purpose of illustration, but are 

of nature and 

grace. internal analogies, and nature is a witness for 

the kingdom of God. Hence was it long since announced as 
a principle, that ‘whatever exists in the earthly is found 
also in the heavenly kingdom.’ Were it not so, those simili- 
tudes would not possess that power of conviction which they 
carry to every unsophisticated mind.” 1 

By connecting religious truth with natural objects, our 
Aid his hear- Lord would aid his hearers in holding his dis- 

ers to remem- 
ber his words. courses in their memories. Every lily and bird 

and merchantman of goodly pearls, every marriage feast, 

every returning season of seed-sowing, would afresh remind 

his disciples of the words of Him “ who spake as never man 

spake.” But his parables served to illustrate and impress 

upon the minds of his disciples the truths that he presented. 

They were blinded by prejudices resulting from their educa- 

niustrated and tion and Jewish expectations in reference to the 
impressed the 

truth. character of the Messiah’s kingdom, and slow 

to believe and receive the spiritual nature of Christ’s govern- 
ment. “By teaching in parables, and presenting the con- 
cerns of his kingdom under the image of familiar objects 
and earthly relations, he laid the groundwork of a most 
comprehensive and varied instruction. Many aspects of the 
kingdom were thus unfolded to them in a form they could 
easily grasp and distinctly comprehend, though for the time 


1 Tholuck on John xv. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


169 


all remained, like the symbols of the Old Testament worship, 
very much as a dark and unintelligible cipher to their view. 
That cipher, however, became lighted up with meaning when 
the personal work of Christ was finished, and the Spirit 
descended with power to make application of its blessings, 
and the minds of the disciples were enabled to grasp the 
higher as well as lower scheme of doctrine exhibited in the 
representation. Through the earthly form they could now 
descry the spiritual.” 2 

There is one reason which Jesus himself gives for teaching, 
in the latter part of his ministry, almost entirely in parables : 
that it was in some sense a rebuke and judgment on his hearers 
for not receiving the truth when presented in a simple and 
direct form. At the close of the parable of the sower he 
answers the question of the disciples, why he thus spoke in 
parables, by saying, “Unto you it is given to The parable 

. . -. p i used to vail 

know the mvsteries of the kingdom ot heaven ; truth because 
J it had been 

but to them it is not given : for whosoever hath, neglected, 
to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance ; but 
whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that 
he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables : because 
they seeing, see not ; hearing, they hear not ; neither under- 
stand.” “ The import of the statement is,” says Fairbaim, 
“ that the disciples, having to a certain extent used the privi- 
lege they possessed, having improved the talents committed 
to them, were to be intrusted with more; while the body 
of the people, having failed to make a similar use of their 
opportunities— remaining destitute of divine knowledge, not- 


2 Fairbairn’s Hermeneutics. 


170 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED 


withstanding all that had been taught them — were to have 

their means of knowing abridged, were to be placed under a 

more indirect and vailed method of instruction. This mode 

This is anaio- of dealing was in perfect accordance with the 
gous to all 

Christ’s work, whole nature and tendency of the work of Christ 
in its relation to the hearts of men, which always carried 
along with it two ends, the one displaying the severity, and 
the other the goodness of God. From the first he was 1 set 
for the fall,’ as well as ‘ the rising again,’ of many in Israel — 
for the enlightenment and salvation first, but if that failed, then 
for the growing hardness and aggravated guilt of the people .” 3 

Mr. Gladstone, the Christian statesman and scholar, re- 
marks in his criticism upon that original and very suggestive 

3 Fairbairn. “ And now comes, 11 says Dean Alford, in his interesting volume 
entitled “ How to Study the Hew Testament,” “ a great and mighty change in 
our Lord’s teaching to the people, recorded for us by St. Matthew alone. lie 
had spoken plainly to them in the sermon on the Mount, and doubtless in many 
other discourses as he went up and down Galilee. But they had rejected his 
teaching, plain as it was. From time to time, therefore, he withdrew his plain 
speaking, and had recourse to a new and hidden method of teaching. The 
parable was a lesson which might be heard and not heard; heard alike out- 
wardly by all, and yet differently by each, according to his capacity for appre- 
hending spiritual truth. Henceforth the Lord teaches in parables, explaining 
all in private to his disciples. And of these parables we have the richest col- 
lection in the thirteenth chapter of this Gospel, (Matthew.) There the whole 
idea and progress and destiny of the kingdom of heaven are unfolded. Its be- 
ginnings among men, in the parable of the sower; its counterfeits, and their 
treatment by us and by God, in that of the tares ; its vast outward extent, from 
the smallest beginnings, in that of the mustard seed; its inward purifying and 
transforming power, in that of the leaven ; the two ways in which men find it, 
one by chance in a field which he gives up all he has to buy, another by search, 
also giving up all to acquire it when found ; and then, finally, the ultimate des- 
tiny of the good and bad in it, in the parable of the draw-net .” — How to Study 
the Hero Testament, page 62. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


171 


volume lately published in England by an anonymous author 
and entitled 11 Ecce Homo : ” “ There is another characteristic 
of the parables. In all of the greater ones which present 
their subject in detail, Christ himself, when they are inter- 
preted, fills a much higher place than that simply of a teacher 
divinely accredited. They all shadow forth a dispensation, 
which, in all its parts, stands related to and dependent on a 

central figure ; and that central figure is in every Christ, holds 

the supreme 

case but two our Saviour himself. He is the ELfabiJs. the 
sower of the seed, the owner of the vineyard, the house- 
holder, in whose field of wheat the enemy intermixed the 
tares; the lord of the unforgiving servant; the nobleman 
who went into a far country, and gave out the talents and 
said, ‘ Occupy till I come ;’ lastly, the bridegroom among the 
virgins, wise and foolish. In every one of these our Saviour 
appears in the attitude of kingship. He rules, directs, and 
furnishes all. He punishes and rewards. Every one of these, 
when the sense is fully apprehended, repeats, as it were, or 
anticipates the procession of the day of Palms, and asserts 
his title to dominion. They must be considered, surely, as 
very nearly akin, if they are not more than nearly akin, to 
declarations of his deity. Two others there are which have 
not yet been mentioned. One is the parable of the house- 
holder, who planted a vineyard and went into a far country, 
and sent his servants to receive his share of the produce. In 
this parable our Lord is not the master, but the master’s 
heir, the person whose the vineyard is to be, and who, 
being sent to perform the office in which other messengers 
had failed, is put to death by the cruel and contumacious 


172 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


tenants. 4 But this parable, if it sets forth something less 
than his kingship, also sets forth much more, and embodies 
the great mystery of his death by wicked hands. There is, 
also, the parable of a certain king which made a marriage 
for his son ; 6 a relation which involves far more than had 
commonly been expressed in his direct teaching among the 
people. Upon the whole, then, the proposition will stand 
good, that these parables differ from, and are in advance of, 
the general instruction respecting the person of the Redeemer 
in the first three Gospels, and place him in a rank wholly 
above that of a mere teacher, however true and holy. They 
set forth that difference from previous prophets and agents 
of the Almighty, which has been noticed by the apostle in 
his Epistle to the Hebrews, where he says that ‘ Moses verily 
was faithful in all his house as a servant ; but Christ as a son, 
over his own house.’ ” 6 

First rule • In interpreting a parable it is necessary in the 

derstand y the first place to thoroughly understand it — to have 

parable in all 

its parts. a correc t apprehension of the force of its different 
symbols. If it relates to a feast, the Jewish custom as to 
invitations, seats, garments, hours, must be distinctly in the 
mind. If it relates to natural history, a clear idea must be 
obtained of the nature of the tree or fruit or grain. For 
Parable of the illustration, in the parable of the wheat and the 

wheat and the 

tares. tares, great interest was added to it in a dis- 

course by Dr. Thomson (son of the author of the “ Land and 
the Book,” who was himself born in Palestine, and often laid 


4 Matthew xxi. s Matthew xxii. 

8 “Ecce Ilomo,” by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, page S2. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


173 


when an infant in the “ manger ” of a caravansera, or inn) by 
his explanation of the nature of the “tares” referred to. 
They are a species of spurious and poisonous wheat, looking 
at first very much like the true grain in its early growth, and 
hardly to be distinguished from it as the crop is growing ; 


but its heads never fill out. While the true wheat, its ker- 
nels filling out, becomes heavy in its head, and bends upon 
the stalk, these false tares, with their light tops, stand impu- 
dently erect, and readily expose themselves in the harvest to 
the searching eye and gathering hand of the reaper. 

We must next discover from the context , if possible , or from 
the general scope of the parable, the exact idea that 

Second rule : 

the Saviour intended to illustrate or enforce, context- fr the 

. lesson which 

There is m every one of them a leading theme. the Saviour 
^ ° proposed to 

Ordinarily the Saviour states, either before or after teach ‘ 
he relates them, the object of their utterance. This, above all, 
is to be seized upon and made to be the key to unlock the vailed 


meaning of the story. Lisco, in his Commentary, 
says, “This is the center and kernel of the parable, 


Lisco upon 
the kernel of 
the parable. 


and till it has been discovered and accurately determined we 


need not occupy ourselves with the individual parts, since 
these can only be seen in their true light when contemplated 
from the proper center. We may compare the whole para- 
bolical representation to a circle, the center of which is the 
divine truth or doctrine, and the radii are the several figura- 
tive traits in the narrative. So long as we do not stand in 
the center, neither does the circle appear in an entirely round 
form, nor do the radii seem in their proper order, as all 
tending to the center, and in beautiful uniformity : this is 


174 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


secured when the eye surveys every thing from the center : so 
it is precisely in the parable. If we have brought clearly and 
distinctly out its central point, its principal idea, then also the 
relative position and right meaning of its several parts be- 
come manifest, and we shall only dwell upon these in so far 
as the main theme can thereby be rendered more distinct.” 

Thus the affecting and marvelously appropriate and beau- 
Main lesson tiful parables in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke 

of parables in 

ofst. £uke! er were called forth by the taunt of the Pharisees 
that Christ received sinners, and ate with them. They un- 
fold, under a variety, but closely-related series, of illustra- 
tions, the reason for the course he had taken, which had 
called out the taunts of his unfriendly observers. And he 
shows that upon the most obvious principles of human 
nature, which even his foes must recognize, the merciful love 
and interest of God in behalf of the lost which he had mani- 
fested in his course toward the morally abandoned were 
justified. 

That most solemn parable of the rich fool, recorded in the 


twelfth chapter of Luke, was called out by the 
impertinent interruption of one of his hearers, 


Parable of the 
rich fool. 


who, having become convinced of the divine authority of 
the speaker, lost all further interest in his subject, and 
simply desired to avail himself of his august decision in the 
division of his earthly inheritance with his brother. In view 
of this, how pertinent and how impressive was the Saviour’s 
parable, prefaced by the words, “ Take heed and beware of 
covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abun- 
dance of the things that he possesseth and closing with, 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


175 


“ Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee : 
then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ? ” 

In the instance of the parable in the twentieth of Matthew, 
on account of the unfortunate interruption of the Saviours 
remark by the opening of a new chapter, there is at first 
some difficulty in apprehending the connection and applica- 
tion of the illustration of the householder and The house- 
holder and 

his laborers employed at different hours, espe- his laborers, 
daily of the summing up : “ So the last shall be first, and the 
first last : for many be called, but few chosen.” By looking 
back into the close of the preceding chapter we find that 
Peter, noticing how much emphasis Christ, in his interview 
with the moral and amiable young ruler, had placed upon 
the giving up of all his property, with characteristic im- 
pulsiveness asks what reward should be their’s who had 
already made this surrender ? The Saviour shows him that 
no sacrifice for his cause would go unrewarded in the heav- 
enly kingdom ; but something more was required — service 
must be rendered with a proper spirit, be persevered in to 
the end, and the rewards of heaven must be submissively left 
in the Master’s hand. Those whose abilities and opportuni- 
ties would seem to place them first will some of them be 
found to be last; and those whose humble gifts and late call 
into the work might seem to throw them into the shade, 
may be found to be the first through faithful perseverance ; 
for many are called to Christian labor, but few enter upon it 
with the right spirit, and persevere unto the end. 

Thus it may be seen that each parable has its specific 
lesson, which it is vital for its comprehension to discover. 


176 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Individual traits may sometimes be safely selected and made 
individual the basis of discourse if care is taken to show 

traits may 

fully used." the connection in which they stand with regard 

to the unity of the entire representation. 

This thought naturally introduces the final remark, that 

Third rule g rea t care should be taken not to interpret separate- 

parts dlff must ty, and out of their relation to the story of the par- 
not be inter- 
preted out of able. the different incidents embodied in it. The 

their connec- ’ •*' 

great danger in expounding parables is in overdo- 
ing the thing. Every sentence of the story is made to have as 
important a function to perform as the whole parable itself. 7 
Dr. Fairbairn remarks in reference to two parables which 


The character our Lord himself interprets : From them we see 

of our Lord’s 

of t parabies ° n “ that every specific feature in the earthly type 
has its correspondence in the higher line of things it repre- 
sents. Nothing, on the one hand, appears merely for orna- 
/ 

ment ; while, on the other, nothing is wire-drawn, or made to 


bear a meaning that seems too much for it.” 

Such an interpretation is not to be justified as the one 

that finds in the fact that “five virgins were wise, and five 

illustrations foolish,” that just one half of the number of 
of false infer- 
ences. nominal Christians are true disciples, and the 


7 An illustration of this may be found in the peculiar commentary just is- 
sued by Rev. W. H. Yan Doren upon the Gospel of St. Luke, entitled “A 
Suggestive Commentary.” The touching parables of the fifteenth chapter are 
fairly over laid and -well-nigh deprived of force and beauty by the almost innu- 
merable “ suggestions ” made upon the different clauses in them. The concrete 
and touching pathos of the story is lost in the cunning ingenuity disclosed in 
evolving nice shades of meaning out of the most natural and ordinary expres- 
sions. Such commentaries have perhaps a u mission,” but they need wise men 
to be benefited and not abused by them. 


THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 


177 


other half self-deceived or fallen from grace. Neither may- 

one infer from the parable of the sower that exactly one 

quarter of those that hear fail to receive the benefit they 

ought from the preaching of the word. 

Even Trench, whose work upon the parables is above 

commendation, errs at times in laying too much stress upon 

the subordinate sentences of the parable, and Trench’s fan- 
ciful interpre- 

sometimes in seeking a fanciful representation of Jarabie°ofthe 

a plain story. “ Thus he makes the parable of tan. k - amdU 

the good Samaritan teach the mission and example of 

Christ. The traveler is ‘ human nature, or Adam, the head of 

the race,’ who leaves the heavenly city and falls into the 

power of Satan, and is all but killed. Christ now finds him 

and restores him. The wine is the blood which Christ shed, 

and the oil is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The binding 

up is the sacraments of the Church. This is a link of ‘ the 

chains,’ (traditionary interpretation,) for he quotes largely 

from the early fathers, and is carried away on the flowery 

stream of their rhetoric with great pleasure.” Dobie, in his 

“Key to the Bible,” from whence the preceding remark 

upon Trench is quoted, adds, “It is no small Little difficul- 
ty in under- 

consolation to reflect that the great mass of plain Snip^mean® 

•. . . . .. , e ingofapara- 

people, who receive the Bible as the word ot bie. 

God, find but little difficulty in comprehending the precise 
point aimed at in these Scriptures.” 


Poetry. 

A very considerable portion of the Bible, especially of 

the Old Testament, is given to us in the form of poetry. 

12 


178 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Sir Patrick 
Hume. 


This form of revealing truth has added to its attraction in 
all ages, and rendered it especially adapted to be 

Poetry of the & ’ 

Blble * held in the memory, and to become an abiding 

comfort when the pious man finds himself deprived of the 
written text. 

Sir Patrick Hume, when, hid in a sepulchral vault, “he 
had no light to read by, having committed to 
memory Buchanan’s Version of the Psalms, be- 
guiled the weary hours of his confinement by repeating them 
to himself, and to his dying day he could repeat every one 
without missing a word, and said they had been the comfort 
of his life by night and day on all occasions.” 8 Probably no 
portion of the Scriptures has been so constantly quoted, or 
afforded so much consolation to the devout of all ages and 
countries, as the poetry of the Bible. The Psalms were read 
and sung by the Jews in their services from David’s time, 
Psalms sung an ^ they have been read and sung by Christians 
and a by great with as much pleasure and profit down to our 

variety of per- 

sojis. day. “Augustine,” says Dean Stanley, “was 

consoled on his conversion and on his death-bed by the 
Psalms. By the Psalms Chrysostom, Athanasius, Savonarola, 
were cheered in persecution. With the words of a psalm 
Polycarp, Columba, Hildebrand, Bernard, Francis of Assisi, 
Huss, Jerome of Prague, Columbus, Henry V., Edward VI., 
Ximenes, Xavier, Melanchthon, Jewel, breathed their last. 
So dear to Wallace in his wanderings was his Psalter that 
during his execution he had it hung before him, and his eyes 
remained fixed upon it as the one consolation of his dying 
8 Life of Sir P. Hume, as quoted by Stanley, page 167, second series. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


179 


hours. The sixty-eighth psalm cheered Cromwell’s soldiers 

to victory at Dunbar. Locke, in his last days, bade his friend 

to read the Psalms aloud, and it was while in wrapt attention 

to their words that the stroke of death fell upon him. Lord 

Burleigh selected them out of the whole Bible as his special 

delight. They were the frame-work of the devotion and of 

the war-cries of Luther ; they were the last words that fell 

on the ear of his imperial enemy, Charles V.” 9 

The usual license allowed in the interpretation- of all poetry 

must be given to the sweet singers of Israel : their To be inter 

rich and figurative language is never to be bent cording to the 

laws of rheto- 

to the severe canons of a grammatical interpreta- ric - 
tion such as might be applied to the history and to the 
epistles of the Bible. The ordinary figures of rhetoric, which 
are to be read in accordance with laws peculiar to them- 
selves and which are found in all our higher . grammars, are 
to be recognized in the interpretation of poetic Scriptures. 
Here many fall into error in attempting to fasten Not to fagten 

a doctrinal statement upon the highly-figurative statement'up- 

on figurative 

language of these poems. Dobie selects a few language, 
passages frequently used as proof-texts to show the habit of 
many religious writers in this respect : 


The wicked are estranged from the womb : 

They go astray as soon as horn, speaking lies. 

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent : 

They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear ; 

Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, 

Charming never so wisely. — Psalm lviii, 8-5. 

Thou art he that took me out of the womb : 

Thou didst make me hope on my mother’s breasts. — Psa.lm xxii, 9. 


9 History of the Jewish Church, second series. 


180 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, 

And in sin did my mother conceive me. 

Purge me with hyssop, and 1 shall be clean ; 

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. — Psalm li, 5, 7. 

For from my youth, he was brought up with me, 

As with a father; 

An d I have guided the widow from my mother’s womb. — Job xxxi, 19. 

And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one, 

And bringest me into judgment with thee ? 

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? 

Not one. — J ob xiv, 3, 4. 

What is man, that he should be clean ? 

And he born of woman, that he should be righteous? — Job xv, 14. 

I have said to corruption. Thou art my father : 

To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. — Job xvii, 14. 

They are all gone out of the way ; 

They are together become unprofitable ; 

There is none that doeth good, no not one. 

Their throat is an open sepulchre ; 

With their tongues they have used deceit; 

The poison of asps is under their lips. — Rom. iii, 12, 13. 

“ These texts,” the writer above mentioned remarks, “ are 
made the proof-texts respecting man’s character, without any 
allowance for the nature of the composition, or of the subject- 
matter of which they treat. But the most illiterate person 
must see that language such as the above is not the language 
of sober statement, but of highly-wrought poetic emotion, 
and for that reason it requires very cautious interpretation.” 
To show still further the error of such a course, he quotes the 
following passages from the Psalms and Prophets, in which 
the impossibility of a literal rendering is at once seen : 

Moab is my wasbpot ; 

Over Edom will I cast my shoe : 

Philistia, triumph thou because of me. — P sa. lx, 8. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


181 


But I am a worm, and no man ; 

A reproach of men, and despised of the people. — P sa. xxii, 6. 

God came down from Teman, 

And the Holy One from Paran ; 

And his brightness was as the light. 

He had horns coming out of his head ; 

And there was the hiding of his power. 

Before him went the pestilence, 

And burning coals went forth at his feet. 

He stood and measured the earth ; 

He beheld and drove asunder the nations ; 

And the everlasting mountains were scattered, 

The perpetual hills did bow; 

His ways are everlasting. — Hab. iii, 3-6. 

“Let the naked letter be insisted on in such passages — 

and why not if in the other ? — and what absurdity would be 

the result ? We do not say that poetry of neces- Effect of lit- 
eral interpre- 

sity exaggerates even doctrinal statements. The verses.° fsuch 
inspired poetry of the Bible contains much doctrine, clearly 
and fairly stated in the best and most impressive forms. But 
due allowance must be made for the intensity of poetry when 
describing the character of man and the ways and attributes 
of God.” 

Dr. Hibbard remarks, in his excellent work upon the 

Psalms, that the interpretation of the poetry of To be inter- 
preted in 

the Bible is less dependent on verbal criticism S P the y feei- 
than on sympathy with the feelings of the author psalmist. the 
and a knowledge of his circumstances. “ You must place 
yourself in his condition, adopt his sentiments, and be floated 
on\yard with the current of his feelings, soothed by his 
consolations, or agitated by the storm of his emotions. Your 
attention is less directed to words than to things. The 


182 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


meaning of the author is to be determined less by an appeal 
to the niceties of philology than by the general scope.” 

The poetry of the Bible has been divided into the poetry 
of the affections and the poetry of the imagina- 


Two forms of 

agination and tion. Of the former we have the Psalms, the 

of the affec- 

tions. Song of Solomon, and the Lamentations of Jere- 

miah, with detached passages here and there from the 
prophets. The poetry of the imagination is to be found in 
the book of Job, but especially in the prophetical writings. 
“ They may be regarded as inspired epics, whose theme is 
the advent and triumph of a great Deliverer, whose glories, 
one after another, burst upon the eye of the prophet through 
the haze which envelopes the future.” 10 

In the Psalms every human affection finds an inspired 
interpreted expression, and they should be interpreted in 

in view of 

acteristia 1 view of this their main characteristic. “ As every 
hue of the setting sun is reflected in the mirror of a glassy 
lake, so in the Psalms is reflected every phase of spiritual 
feeling, from the deepest humiliation under a sense of sin to 
the most triumphant rejoicing in the conquest of sin and 
death by a crucified and risen Messiah. Hope, fear, trust, 
sorrow’, love of God, and hatred of evil, the plaintive mourn- 
ing of the dove, the roar of inner disquietude, the voice of 
joy and praise, alternate in these holy songs, and furnish 
expressions and stimulants for every mood of mind.” 11 
a knowledge The most important external aid for the right 

of the circum- 

their e compo f - understanding of the Psalms is a knowledge of 
sition valua- 
ble. the circumstances under which, they were com- 


10 Goulburn. 


11 Ibid. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


188 


posed. Wliat an additional interest it gives to the noble 
“ Song of Moses ” commencing, “ I will sing unto the Lord, for 
he hath triumphed gloriously,” to recollect that it was sung 
upon the banks of the Red Sea after Israel had passed through 
it upon dry land, and the hosts of the Egyptians were buried 
in the returning waves. Dr. Townsend has performed a fine 
service in his excellent Arrangement of the Bible (a work that 
ought to be in the hands of every interpreter of D: r^. To wn- 
the Bible) in introducing the Psalms into the his- £nffb? e ! nt 
torical Scriptures at the period they are supposed to have 
been written. The events in the history of the Jewish nation 
form an admirable “ setting,” in which these songs of praise, 
or “songs in the night,” appear in their best light. Dr. 
Hibbard, in his work upon the Psalms, has, with great 
assiduity, arranged the psalms in the order of their chronol- 
ogy, and preceded them with appropriate references to con- 
temporaneous events. 

Stanley, in his account of the reign of David, introduces 

with happy effect the psalms that marked the different eras 

in the life and experience of the king. We can only select, 

from pages of great interest, the account of Ark brought 

the bringing of the ark of God into Jerusalem, saiemasiiius- 
° trated by 

The event is related simply in 2 Sam. vi, 2, 18 : stanley - 
“ David arose, and went with all the people that were with 
him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of 
God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts 
that dwelleth between the cherubim;” and “he blessed 
the people in the name of the Lord of hosts.” “The 
psalms which directly and indirectly spring out of this 


184 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


event 12 reveal a deeper meaning than the mere outward 
ritual. It was felt to be the turning-point in the history of 
the nation. Accordingly, as the ark stood beneath the walls 
of the ancient Jewish fortress, so venerable with unconquered 
age, the summons goes up from the procession to the dark 
walls in front : ‘ Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye 
lifted up, ye everlasting doors ! and the King of glory shall 
come in.’ The ancient everlasting gates of Jebus are called 
to lift up their heads — their portcullis grates — stiff with the 
rust of ages. They are to grow and rise with the freshness 
of youth, that their height may be worthy to receive the new 
King of glory. That glory, which fled when the ark was taken, 
and when the dying mother exclaimed over her new-born 
son, ‘Icliabod F 13 was now returning. From the lofty towers 
the warders cry, Who is this King of glory V The old 
heathen gates will not at once recognize this new-comer. 
The answer comes back, as if to prove by the victories 
of David the right of the name to Him who now comes to 
his own again, ‘ Jehovah, the Lord, the mighty One, Jehovah, 
mighty in battle ! 1 and again by this proud title admission 
is claimed : ‘ Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye 
lifted up, ye everlasting doors ! and the King of glory shall 
come in.’ Once more the guardians of the gates reply, ‘ Who 
is the King of glory V And the answer comes back : ‘ Jeho- 
vah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, he is the King of glory ! ’ 
This is the solemn inauguration of that great Name by which 
the divine nature was especially known under the monarchy. 
It was, indeed, as the sixty-eighth psalm describes it, a 

12 Psalms xv, xxiv, xxix, xxx, lxviii, cxxxii, and cxli. 13 1 Sam. iv, 21, 22. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


185 


second exodus. David was on that day the founder, not of 
freedom only, but of empire ; not of religion only, but of a 
Church and commonwealth. But there were revelations of a 
yet loftier kind even than this new name of the leader of the 
armies of Israel. The name of the Lord of Hosts, as revealed 
in the close of the twenty-fourth psalm, was destined itself to 
fade away into a dark silence when the hosts had ceased to 
fight and the empire of Israel had fallen to pieces. But in 
the hopes with which that same psalm is opened, and which 
pervades the fifteenth and the one hundred and first, the 
faith of David takes a higher and still wider sweep. As if 
in answer to the cry from the guardians of the gates, as he 
remembers the tabernacle which he had raised within the 
walls of his city to receive the ark after its long wanderings, 
as he sees its magnificent train mounting up to its sacred 
tent on the sacred rock, the thought rises within him of those 
who shall hereafter be the citizens of the capital thus con- 
secrated, and he asks, ‘ Who shall ascend into the mount of 
Jehovah ? Who shall stand in his holy place ? Who shall 
abide in thy tabernacle ? Who shall abide in thy holy tent ? ’ 
The question is twice asked, the reply is twice given : ‘ He 
that hath clean hands and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted 
up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbor. 
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and 
speaketh the truth from his heart. He that backbiteth not 
with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh 
up a reproach against his neighbor. He that despiseth a 
vile person, but honoreth them that fear Jehovah. He that 
sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. He that put- 


186 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


tetli not out his money unto usury, nor taketh a reward 
against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall 
never fall.’ 14 Of these tests for the entrance into David’s 
city and David’s Church one only has become obsolete, that 
of not receiving usury. All the rest remain in force still — 
nay, it may even be said that the one qualification, repeated 
in so many forms, of the duty of truth, even in Christian 
times, has hardly been recognized with equal force as hold- 
ing the exalted place which David gives it. When at length 
the day is past, and he finds himself in his own palace, he 
there lays down for himself the rules by which ‘ he will 
walk in his house with a perfect heart.’ The one hundred 
and first psalm was one beloved by the noblest of Russian 
princes, Vladimir Monomachos ; by the gentlest of English 
reformers, Nicholas Ridley. But it was its first leap into life 
that has carried it so far into the future. It is full of a stern 
exclusiveness, of a noble intolerance. But not against theo- 
logical error, not against uncourtly manners, not against 
political insubordination, but against the proud heart, the 
high look, the secret slanderer, the deceitful worker, the 
teller of lies. These are the outlaws from King David’s 
court, these alone are the rebels and heretics whom he would 
not suffer to dwell in his house, or tarry in his sight : ‘ Mine 
eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may 
dwell with me ; he that walketh in a perfect way he shall be 
my servant. I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, 
that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the 
Lord.’ 35 Many have been the holy associations with which 


1 4 Psalms xv, xxii. 


1 5 Psalm ci, 6-8. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


187 


the name of Jerusalem has been invested in apocalyptic 
vision and Christian hymns, but they have their first his- 
torical ground in the sublime aspirations of its first royal 
founder.” 16 

This most interesting historical illustration of one series 
of the Psalms, from Stanley’s very instructive History of the 
Jewish Church, shows how much light can be poured upon 
them, and how much beauty and force added to them, by a 
careful gathering of the incidents which formed the first 
occasions of their utterance. 

A marked peculiarity of the poetry of the Bible is a law 

which seems to pervade the whole of it, and is - 

denominated parallelism , an understanding of Psalms ' 
which will afford great aid in the interpretation of the 
metrical portions of Scripture. By parallelism is meant the 
correspondence which one line, or a part of a verSe, bears to 
another. The first line will commonly contain a distinct 
idea or proposition. The second will present the same idea, 
either more direct and literal, or else more obscure and enig- 
matical, or perhaps with some enlargement. Sometimes the 
law of contrast will obtain, and the second or parallel line 
will be the opposite of the idea contained' in the first. In 
either case it will be seen that it becomes, as it is intended to 
be, explanatory of the other. 17 

Bishop Lowth presents three forms of parallelism. I. The 
first he styles synonymous , and it embraces those First form : 

synonymous 

lines that correspond one to another by expressing parallelism. 

is History of the Jewish Church, Second Series, pages 95-9S. 

” Hibbard on the Psalms, page 53. 


188 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


tlie same sense in different, but equivalent terms; as, for 
illustration : 

Because I called and ye refused ; 

I stretched out my hand and no one regarded ; 

But ye have defeated all my counsel, 

And would not incline to my reproof : 

I also will laugh at your calamity ; 

I will mock when your fear cometh. — P rov. i, 24-26. 

Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found ; 

Call ye upon him while he is near: 

Let the wicked forsake his way, 

And the unrighteous man his thought; 

And let him turn to Jehovah, and he will compassionate him ; 

And unto our God, for he aboundeth in forgiveness. 18 — Isa. lv, 6, 7. 

In these selections it will be seen that the thought of the 
first line is repeated with some variations in the second, and 
Sometimes that of the third in the fourth, etc. Sometimes 

consists of 

four lines. the parallel consists of four lines, the last two 
answering to the first two, and making one verse : 

Be not moved with indignation against the evil doers; 

Neither be jealous at the workers of iniquity: 

For like the grass they shall soon be cut off ; 

And like the green herb they shall wither. — P sa. xxxvii, 1, 2. 

The ox knoweth his owner, 

And the ass the crib of his lord ; 

But Israel doth not know ; 

My people doth not consider. — I sa. i, 3. 

This order is varied so that four lines will be followed by 
their four corresponding strains, and at other 

Eight lines. 

times the third line will respond to the first, 
and the fourth to the second. 


18 Bishop Lowth’s translation. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


189 


As the heavens are high above the earth, 

So high is his goodness over them that fear him ; 

As remote as the east is from the west, 

So far hath he removed from us our transgressions. — Psa. ciii, 11, 12. 

II. The second kind of parallels he calls antithetic. These 


are the verses in which the* two lines oppose 
each other by a contrast of sentiments, as, 


Second form : 
antithetic. 


A wise son rejoiceth his father, 

But a foolish son is the grief of his mother.— P eov. x, 1. 

Dr. Hibbard remarks that there is no one rule for the 
interpretation of the Proverbs of Solomon of more 

L Peculiar to 

importance and universal application than this law Proverbs - 
of parallelism. In many instances this rule of antithetic cor- 
respondence is the chief and only safe reliance of the expos- 
itor. Illustrations of this are to be found also in the Psalms. 

Some in chariots and some in horses, (do trust;) 

But we make mention of the name of the Lord our God. 

They are brought down and fallen ; 

But we are risen and stand upright. — P sa. xx, 7, 8. 

III. The third form is styled synthetic. It is where the 
parallelism consists only in a similarity of con- ThM ^ < 
struction ; neither the words nor lines answer to s y nthetlc - 
each other, but there is a correspondence and equality be- 
tween the different propositions, such as when the parts of 
speech answer to each other, a negative to a negative, and an 
interrogative to an interrogative. Bishop Lowth illustrates 
this form by the one hundredth and forty-eighth psalm : 

Praise ye Jehovah, ye of the earth I 
Te sea-monsters, and all deeps 
Fire and hail, snow and vapor ; 

Stormy winds executing his command ; 


190 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Mountains and all hills; 

Fruit trees and all cedars ; 

Wild beasts and all cattle ; 

Eeptiles and birds of wing ; 

Kings of the earth and all peoples ; 

Princes and all judges of the earth ; 

Youths and all virgins; * 

Old men, together with the children ; 

Let them praise the name of Jehovah ; 

For his name alone is exalted ; 

His majesty above earth and heaven. 

The book of Job consists chiefly of this form of parallelism. 

With Him is wisdom and might; 

To Him belong counsel and understanding. 

Lo ! he pulleth down, and it shall not be built ; 

He encloseth a man, and he shall not be set loose. 

Lo ! he withholdeth the waters, and they are dried up ; 

And he sendeth them forth, and they overturn the earth. 

With him is strength and perfect existence ; 

The deceived and the deceiver are his. — Job xii, 13-16. 

It will prove a pleasant and instructive task to arrange tht 
poetical portions of the Bible into metrical verses under 
these rules. In Townsend’s Arrangement the poetical Scrip- 
tures are presented in the form of verse, in accordance with 
the translation in our received version. 

We can hardly leave the poetry of the Bible without a 
passing reference to the “vindictive psalms,” as 

The vindic- 1 ° 1 

tive psalms - they are called. There are, as it is well known, 
portions of these Scriptures in which the most terrible ven- 
geance is denounced upon enemies, extending to their wives 
and children, even down into the coming generations. No 
Christian man could use them in reference to personal enemies 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


191 


without transgressing the plainest teachings of the Bible, 
and bringing remorse upon his conscience. It is not a suffi- 
cient answer to say that these were the expressions of a dark 
age and a less merciful dispensation, for in the Not enough 

to say they 

same book, and dropping from the same lips, the 1 ’ “g? 8 in 

are to be found the sweetest, tenderest, most for- were h utt.eS 

giving, and charitable sentiments ; and all these strains, it 

must be remembered, are inspired of the Holy Ghost, and 

are still profitable. There can be but one answer : These are 

not the expressions of personal wrath against personal foes. 

As in the instance of the awful and sweeping N ot expres- 
sions of per- 

destruction of human life by the children of sonai wrath. 
Israel when they entered upon the possession of Canaan, 
there can be found no justification but in the divine com- 
mand. God might have swept away a frightfully-depraved 
and sinful people by a pestilence, but this would have 
seemed to Israel as a natural event, and not a retributive 
judgment ; but he committed the work into their hands, 
with an express statement of the reason for which he visited 
this utter destruction upon the nations of Canaan; that they, 
unarmed and weak as they were, and yet easily, by God’s 
help, overthrowing their foes, might never forget the ven- 
geance that he visited upon idolatry and impurity, nor the 
sure defense of Him who moved the floods aside for their 
passage across the Jordan, and made them terrible to God’s 
foes and their own. So in these psalms, there is nothing in 
the sentiments of the religious men of the Old Testament 
dispensation, or in the prevailing religious expressions of the 
psalmists themselves, to justify the opinion that they be- 


192 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


The psalmists lievecl it right to curse their personal foes. 

themselves 

fieve upright They were the enemies of God and of his king- 
sonaifoes^ er dom whom they addressed. 

“Job considered it a great sin to indulge a revengeful spirit. 
‘ If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or 
lifted up myself when evil found him; neither have I suf- 
fered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul.’ 19 
The law of Moses expressly commands kindly offices to 
enemies. 20 Solomon, also, says, ‘If thine enemy be hungry, 
give him bread to eat ; and if he be thirsty, give him water 
to drink : for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, 
and the Lord shall reward thee.’ 21 ‘ Rejoice not when thine 

enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stum- 
bleth ; lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn 
away his wrath from him. Say not I will do so to him, as 
he hath done to me : I will render to the man according to 
his work.’ ” 22 The great psalmist especially, as his treatment 
of King Saul bore witness, was an amiable, forgiving, noble- 
hearted man. 

These vindictive psalms have been the “ songs in the 
Have ^been night ” of the martyrs in all generations. They 
anages. ted ° f resounded from the secluded mountains and re- 
cesses of Sotland, from the secret retreats of the Hu- 
guenots of France, from the fastnesses of the mountains of 
Tyrol and the Apennines, and from Tabor in Bohemia. 
Huss, Luther, and the long-suffering of every age have 
chanted these solemn and inspiring strains of triumph 

19 Job xxxi, 29, 30. 20 Exod. xxiii, 4, 5. 

21 Prov. xxv, 21, 22. 22 Prov. xxiv, 17, 18, 29 : see Hibbard on the Psalms. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


193 


against, not their own foes, but the enemies of God and of his 
Church. It is the same fearful language which Christ used 

such lan- 

the “ Lamb of God,” when upon earth, who re- Ruage. 
ceived sinners and ate with them, who came to seek and to 
save the lost, who died with a prayer for his murderers 
upon his lips, used when addressing the proud, incorrigible 
foes of God. These psalms set forth in divinely-guarded 
language God’s abhorrence of wickedness, and the fearful 
judgments he will visit upon those that persist in it. 

During our late civil war Professor Park of Andover pub- 
lished a very elaborate article in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 
January, 1862, upon the imprecatory psalms. He remarks 
in the opening of his interesting paper that there are ciises 
in life which bring out the hidden uses of such „ . . 

& The late war 

, xr -r>*i i l i illustrates this 

parts of the Bible as seem long ago to have be- view of the 

imprecatory 

come antiquated, or to have been rendered pow- psalms - 
erless through the brighter light of a later dispensation. 
“ Since the commencement of the present rebellion,” he goes 
on to say, “ the imprecatory psalms have gained a new mean- 
ing in the view of men who had been wont to regard them 
as unchristian. Now the red planet Mars, which had been 
unnoticed in our horizon, has reappeared; the lost hymns 
have been found again. It is a new proof of the inspiration 
of the Bible that so many of its forgotten teachings have 
been commended to our regard bjr the martial scenes of the 
day.” Sentiments entirely proper, as called out by the con- 
dition of the country, and as expressing the horror of a 
Christian community both at the character of the rebellion 

and its moving cause, were constantly expressed and listened 

13 


194 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


to by Christian audiences, which no religious man could 
utter in reference to personal wrongs, or for an ordinary 
offense. An illustration of this is given in a note by Pro- 
fessor Park. One of the mildest, most cultivated, and Chris- 
tian-tempered orators of our land, whose sympathies hereto- 
fore had been strongly drawn toward the states at that time 
in rebellion, Edward Everett, in an address de- 

Speecli of Mr. 

Everett. liyered in Boston, after giving a narrative of the 
miseries which had been brought upon our country by eight 
or ten leaders of the southern rebellion, gave vent to the 
righteous indignation which such a course awakened in the 
thrilling words : 

“ Is there not some hidden curse, 

Some chosen thunder in the stores of Heaven, 

Eed with uncommon wrath, to blast the man 
That seeks his greatness in his country’s ruin ? ” 

“ We are informed,” says Professor Park, “ that at the 
recital of these verses the thrill of the assembly was well- 
nigh unprecedented. The ‘ running fire of applause ’ which 
had been elicited by previous words of the orator now ‘ burst 
into a volcano of enthusiasm.’ Such verses demand that he 
who rehearses them should feel the tenderest pity for those 
who are suffering from the ambition of traitors. So, unless 
our sympathies be aroused for the bleeding Protestants, we 
Milton’s son- revolt from the sonnet of Milton ‘on the late 

net on the 

Piedmont. “ massacre in Piedmont 

‘ Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 

Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones. 

Forget not ! ' 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


195 


Proverbs and 
Ecclesiastes. 


“An insulated imprecation repels men who will be recon- 
ciled to it when they enter into such reasons for it as are 
intimated in Psa. ix, 13-20 ; x, 2 ; liv, 3.” 23 

The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes form the great 
divine repositories of inspired moral maxims. 

The histories and biographies of the Bible, as 
we have said in another place, do not give expression to the 
divine abhorrence of wrong-doing in the instance of those 
whose acts are recorded ; but in these books, in the most 
striking and pungent manner, and in a form to cling to the 
memory, as well as to impress the imagination, the judgment 
of God against every form of deceit and impurity is given. 
They are rendered even more impressive as being the results 
of human experience ; coming from the lips of the wisest, 
richest, most powerful, and most tempted of kings. It is to 
be feared that in modern days these consummate lessons of 
wisdom for the guidance and defense, especially of youth, do 
not receive the attention they should. 

We have already intimated the light that a knowledge of 
the oriental espousal and marriage customs will 
shed upon that most incomprehensible, to many, 
of the books of the Bible, Solomon’s Song. Isaac Taylor 
happily remarks that this song of pure conjugal love carries 
|us back to Eden. In its pure and virgin arbors the king, 
turning away from the impure atmosphere of a fallen world, 
finds his subjects and his images. This poem would be 
entirely true to nature if man only were innocent, and woman 
always pure and loving. “ If,” says the well-known author 


Solomon’s 

Song. 


23 Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xix, p. 207. 


196 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


of the History of Enthusiasm, to whom we have alluded, “ a 
half dozen heedlessly rendered passages of our English ver- 
sion were amended, as easily they might be, 
then the canticle would well consist throughout 


A few emen- 
dations in 
text would 

feet in its P ex- with the purest utterances of conjugal fondness. 

pression of A 

holy love. 


Happy would any people be among whom there 
was an abounding of that conjugal fondness which might 
thus express itself.” It is not as an expression of pure 
and innocent love merely that it finds its place in the canon, 
has held it persistently against many efforts to unseat it, and 
has been found to be a medium of expression among the 


Prized for its holiest of the saints of earth, but as the in- 
expression of 

spiritual life, spired illustration of the deepest and sincerest 


emotions of their spiritual life. It is to be interpreted in 
all the simplicity and purity of an early, well assorted, 
divinely instituted marriage, while under its folds of 
human love lays embalmed the divine symbol of Christ’s 
relation to his Church and to the individual soul that 
pants for him. In this use of it “ it lias served to give 
animation and intensity, and warrant, too, to the devout 
meditations of thousands of the most holy, and of the 


Isaac Taylor’s purest minds. Those who have no conscious- 
view of the 

book. ness of this kind, and whose feelings and notions 


are all ‘of the earth — earthy,’ will not fail to find in this 
book that which will suit them for purposes sometimes of 
mockery, sometimes of luxury, sometimes of disbelief. Quite 
unconscious of these perversions, and happily ignorant of 
them, and unable to suppose them possible, there have been 
multitudes of unearthly spirits to whom this — the most 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


197 


beautiful of pastorals — has been not indeed a beautiful pas- 
toral, but the choicest of those words of truth which are 
‘ sweeter than honey to the taste,’ and £ rather to be chosen 
than thousands of gold and silver.’ ” 24 

Prophecy. 

The Bible is full of prophecy fulfilled or unfulfilled. 
Its histories are the records of the fulfillment 

Prophecy. 

of previous prophecies, and the New Testa- 
ment is the complement of the Old, in which its prophetic 
types and words are shown to have been fully met in the 
person of Christ, and the Gospel which he established. 

It not unfrequently occurs, however, in the New Testament, 
that an incident recorded in the Old, which in 

Illustrative 

some measure is repeated in the times of Christ, events - 
is said to be fulfilled. “Any thing,” says Dr. Bloomfield, 
“ may be said to be fulfilled if it admits of being appropri- 
ately applied.” Thus in the second chapter of Matthew we 
read, “ Then was fulfilled that which was spoken 

Weeping of 

by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was Rachel * 
there a voic$ heard, lamentation and weeping, and great 
mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not 
be comforted because they are not.” In the prophetic vision 
of the weeping seer, 25 the beloved wife of Jacob, the mother 
of Israel, by a striking figure is represented as rising from her 
grave and weeping over the slain of her children — slain 
in the invasions of their country by the foes whom God per- 
mitted to scourge them ; so in the times of the infant 
2 « The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry, page 23S. 25 Jer. xxxi, 15. 


198 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Redeemer, when Herod’s sword was reeking with the blood of 
the children of Jndea, slain around the very grave of Rachel, 
near Bethlehem, this sad mother is said to rise and weep 
again, and the vision of the prophet is once more realized. 

The quotation in the fifteenth verse of the same chapter of 
Matthew is another instance of the same form 

Calling out of 

Egypt. 0 f fulfillment, or renewed realization : “ That it 

might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the 
prophet, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” The depart- 
ure of Israel from Egypt under Moses, of which Hosea 
speaks, 26 was not a direct prophecy nor type of our Redeem- 
er’s brief residence in that country, but a coincident fact, 
full of profitable and grateful suggestion, and illustrating 
our Lord’s departure from the Holy Land and return to it. 

Fulfilled prophecy is best interpreted by history. The 
History inter- records of Jewish, Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, 

prets fulfilled 

prophecy. Roman, and modern history, and the ruins and 
desolations of many countries like Palestine and Egypt, and 
cities like Tyre and Babylon, afford the best means for a correct 
interpretation of the inspired visions which it pleased God to 
bestow upon the ancient seers, and which have been signally 
fulfilled. The prophet himself evidently did not always 
understand the force of the words or the symbols which he 
used. 27 The idea of exact time was not in the 

Prophet, no 

idea of time. p r0 phet’s mind, for the commencement of Mes- 
siah’s reign upon earth and the glorious universal triumph 
of the Gospel are announced in the same passages. It was 
partly for this reason that the Jewish interpreter, eagerly 

26 Hosea xii, 13. ™ 1 Peter i, 10, 11. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


199 


seizing upon the triumphs of the promised royal seed of 
David as connected with the advent of Messiah, overlooked 
the humiliation and suffering which he must first undergo. 
That manifestation of the Son of David is yet, after nineteen 
hundred years, an object of faith and not of sight. 

It is evident that prophesy is not given in terms so definite 
as to be readily understood, except as to its general scope. 
There is not a more definite prophecy than Daniel’s as to the 
time of the coming of the Messiah ; yet our Lord, when justi- 
fying to his forerunner his claim to the exalted character of 
Him “ that was to come,” appealed not to Dan- Jesus did not 

appeal to the 

iel’s symbolical beasts, or to his mysterious fig- Daniel. ° f 
ures, but to the miracles of mercy, lying here and there 
upon the bosom of prophecy, which he was then fulfilling. 
Christ’s own prophecies and those of the book of Revela- 
tion are of the same nature. They point out a future with 
a dark, heavy, crimson foreground, but with a golden and 
glorious distant horizon. The destruction of Jerusalem, and 
the final successive subsidence, in connection prophecies of 

the New Tes- 

witli much human sorrow and Christian disci- tament. 
pline, of other earthly kingdoms, down to the hour of the fall 
of the last foe and the sublime installation of Christ’s uni- 
versal kingdom, amid the halleluiahs of angels and re- 
deemed men, are set forth in natural and somewhat mys- 
terious symbols in the last discourses of our Lord and the 
jjrophecies of John the Evangelist. 

Prophecy was not intended to be history, but an index or 
gnomon pointing in the direction of the Divine 

& r a Prophecy not 

Providence. It was intended, by the assurance hlstory * 


200 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


it affords when its terms are fulfilled by the occurrence of 
events, to establish the faith of God’s people as to his con- 
trol of human affairs, as to the inspiration of his word, as to 
his abundant power to make even the wrath of man praise him, 
Points to the and also to give courage and comfort to the peo- 
truth. tlan °f God in reference to the future. However 

discouraging the condition of the Church at any given period, 
and however arrogant and numerous her foes, the servants of 
the most high God have a “ sure word of prophecy ” shining 
like a bright light upon a dark future, and giving them abso- 
lute assurance of the final triumph of Christian truth. 

The sad mistakes to which we have heretofore alluded, 
arising out of a too confident reliance upon a literal render- 
ing of prophetic symbols — the absolute errors into which 
learned and good men have fallen when apparently resting 
upon the exact demonstrations of scriptural figures — should 
The hour of teach us the truth of the saying of our Lord, that 
veaied. ot re " while his coming will certainly be experienced, 
with all its attendant circumstances, the specific hour has not 
been revealed. 28 It seems to have been the intention of the 

28 Matt, xxiv, 36. “ But the key,” says Dr. Whedon in his supplementary 
note to his comments upon the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, “ to the whole 
mystery (in reference to the time of Christ’s second coming) is furnished in 
2 Peter iii, 8, where, in regard to this very point, Peter reminds us that 1 one 
day with the Lord is as a thousand years.’ (Not that a day in prophecy, as some 
teach, is an exact symbol of a thousand years, but that time is without human 
measure in God’s mind.) Scoffers in the last days, he tells us, would raise this 
very objection : ‘ Where is the promise of his coming ? ’ Peter replies by inform- 
ing us that the distance of the event is to be measured by the arithmetic of God. 
One day is as a thousand years, and language that would seem to intimate a 
few days may really embrace a few thousands or myriads of years. If it be 
true that both Christ and his apostles have warned us that the time of the second 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


201 


Holy Spirit that in all ages, even the apostolical, the Church 
should be looking for and loving the appearing of the Son 
of God, and purifying herself in the expectation of it. “ Only 
a few years ago,” says Dobie, “ the year and the day were 
confidently fixed when the trumpet should sound and the 
voice of the Son of God be heard calling the world to judg- 
ment. It is only as yesterday that the eloquent Irving, with 
saintly and joyous countenance, was wont to stand for hours 
together on his balcony, looking toward the east, i rv ing on the 

coming of 

momentarily expecting to see the glorious white Christ, 
throne, and the retinue of attending angels, and the ever- 
blessed Redeemer coming in the glory of the Father to judge 
the living and the dead. And now another prophet has risen 
up, and by him we are confidently assured from a devout and 
prayerful study of the prophets that the second coming of 
Christ and the end of the present system will probably take 
place in 1865. (The writer refers to the eloquent 
Dr. Cumming, of London, whose date has now llkewise - 
been passed some three years ; but, not discouraged, he still 
fixes it again in the near future.) The data of this and all 
other similar calculations are found in Dan. xii, 11, com- 
pared with Rev. xii, 5; xiii, 18; and xx, 4. But by a 
cursory inspection of these passages it will be seen that any 
calculation of the year when this world shall end must be 
very, if not purely, arbitrary, inasmuch as there is no direct 

advent was to them unrevealed* and unknown— if they use in abundance 
terms indicating an indefinite distance— if they themselves furnish the solution 
of all their expressions intimating its near proximity— all objections to their in- 
fallibility in regard to other subjects upon which they speak with professed 
inspiration are nugatory and captious.” 


202 


T£E WORD OF GOD OP-ENED. 


reference to that event in these passages whatever. All that 


the Bible justifies us in believing respecting the 
termination of the present world is, that there 


Bible view of 
the end. 


is a certain grand result to be reached in the histoiy of our 
race, a general dispersion of the ignorance of men and a 
triumph over the wickedness that reigns in the earth ; and 
that after an extended period of peace and holiness, very 
suddenly and unexpectedly the angel of God will summon 
both the living and the dead to judgment. Then will come 
the end, the dissolution of the present system in liquid fire, 
and the final retribution of the last day, dispensed in right- 
eousness by our Lord Jesus Christ .” 29 This may, and may 

29 Key to the Bible, pages 202, 203. “ The Bible,” says Bernard, “ is one 
long account of the preparation of the city of God. That is one distinct point 
of view from which the Bible ought to be regarded, and one from which its 
contents will appear in clearer light. We are accustomed in the present day to 
read it too exclusively from the individual point of view, as the record for each 
man of that will of God and that way of salvation with which he is personally 
concerned. This it is, but it is more than this. It places before us the restora- 
tion not only of the personal, but of the social life ; the creation not only of the 
man of God, but of the city of God ; and it presents the society or city not as 
a mere name for the congregation of individuals, but as having a being and life 
of its own, in which the Lord finds his satisfaction and man his perfection. 
The ‘Jerusalem which is above’ is, in relation to the Lord, ‘the bride, the 
Lamb’s wife;’ (Eev. xxi, 9 ;) and in relation to man, it is ‘ the mother of us all.’ 
Gal. iv, 36. In its appearance the revealed course of redemption culminates, 
and the history of man is closed ; and thus the last chapters of the Bible declare 
the unity of the whole book by completing the design which has been developed 
in its pages and disclosing the result to which all preceding steps have tended. 
Take from the Bible the final vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, and what will 
fiave been lost? Not merely a single passage, a sublime description, an impor- 
tant revelation, but a conclusion by which all that went before is interpreted 
and justified. We shall have an unfinished plan, in which human capacities 
have not found their full realization, or divine preparation their adequate result. 
But as it is, neither of these deficiencies exists. The great consummation is 


TIIE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


203 


not, be the order of events. This millennial reign may come 
before or after Christ’s advent. The former is 

Spiritual and 

the widely-received spiritual view of the proplie- llteral view ‘ 
cies ; the latter the view of Millenarians, many of whom do 
not, however, attempt to designate the period when Christ 
will make his appearance. 

But the study of prophecy is profitable, although we may 
not be able to read it as we would history. It is prophecy a 

profitable 

given, the most of it, in the sublimest strains of stud y- 
poetry ever written, and is to be interpreted according to 
the rules already laid down for this style of composition. 
What higher or more spiritual or practical conception of the 
glory and holiness of Almighty God can be found than that 

there, and we are instructed to observe that from the first the desires of men 
and the preparations of God have been alike directed toward it. At the begin- 
ning of the sacred story the father of the faithful comes forth into view, fol- 
lowed by those who are heirs with him of the same promise; and they separate 
themselves to the life of strangers, because they are ‘looking for a city which 
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ In due time solid pledges 
of the divine purpose follow. We behold a peculiar people, a divinely-framed 
polity, a holy city, a house of God. It is a wonderful spectacle, this system of 
earthly types, thus consecrated and glorified by miraculous interventions and 
inspired panegyrics. Do we look on the fulfillment of patriarchal hopes or on 
the types of their fulfillment? on the final form of human society or on the 
figures of the true? The answer was given by prophets and psalmists, and then 
by the word of the Gospel, finally by the hand of God, which swept the whole 
system from the earth. It was gone when the words of the text were written, 
and when the closing scene of the Bible presented the New Jerusalem, not as 
the restoration, but as the antitype of the old. This vision teaches us that the 
drama of the world must be finished, and its dispensation closed, that the Lord 
must have come, the dead have been raised, the judgment have sat, the heaven 
and earth which are now have passed aw'ay, and the new creation have appeared, 
before the chosen people shall see the city of their habitation .” — Progress of 
Doctrine, in the New Testament, page 219. 


204 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


presented by the prophet Isaiah, when in the commencement 
of his prophetic mission, “In the year that King Uzziah 
died,” he had that sublime vision in the temple. 30 Before 
his wondering gaze “ the vail of the temple was withdrawn 
and the holy of holies discovered to the prophet’s eyes, and 
he saw the Lord sitting as a king upon his throne actually 
governing and judging. His train, the symbol of dignity 
and glory, filled the holy place ; while around him hovered 
the attendant seraphim, spirits of purity, zeal, and love, 
chanting in alternate choirs the holiness of their Lord ; the 
threshold vibrated with the sound, and the 4 white cloud ’ of 
the divine Presence, as if descending to mingle itself with 
the ascending incense of prayer, filled the house. The eter- 
nal archetypes of the Hebrew’s symbolic worship were re- 
vealed to Isaiah ; and, as the center of them all, his eyes saw 
the King, the Lord of Hosts, of whom the actual rulers from 
David to Uzziah had been but the temporary and subordinate 
viceroys. In that Presence even the spirits of the fire which 
consumes all impurities, while none can mix with it, cover their 
faces and their feet, conscious that they are not pure in God’s 
sight, but justly chargeable with imperfection; and much 
more does Isaiah shrink from the aspiring thoughts he had 
hitherto entertained of his fitness to be the preacher of that 
God to his countrymen — he, a man of unclean lips, sharing 
the uncleanness of the people among whom he dwells. In 
utter self-abasement he realizes the exceeding sinfulness of 
sin, and the utter separation it makes between man and the 
holy God.” 31 

30 Isaiah vi. 31 Sir Edward Strachey’s Hebrew Polities, page 79. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


205 


Prophecy is really a grand epic, with many acts and a 
variety of scenes, but with a divine unity. Imagination can 
find in no human work so fine a field for its highest and 
purest conceptions. Christ is the great central personage in 
the extended poem, written by different hands, but always 
preserving the divine unities. His kingdom in all its for- 
tunes, adverse and prosperous, is set forth. His own mar- 
velous history from the manger to the cross, his providential 
government, and his final universal triumph and coronation 
in his own Hew Jerusalem, where his happy followers “ need 
no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth 
them light,” “and there shall be no night there,” are pre- 
sented throughout the long poem, commencing in Eden and 
ending in the Apocalypse. 

Dr. SchafF remarks of the Book of Revelation that it sur- 
passes all the other prophetic writings in harmony, elevation, 
fullness, unity of view, progress of action, majesty of style, 
and, above all, in the direct relation of all parts of the pic- 
ture to the central figure of the crucified and now glorified 
Christ, who rules the whole history of the world and the 
Church, and is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. 
He goes on to say that “ in a succession of visions and mys- 
terious allegories it unfolds before the reader the Dr. schaff up- 
on the Keve- 

great epochs of the kingdom of God on earth to lation. 
the close of its earthly development. Its burden is the com- 
forting truth that the Lord comes, the Lord fights, the Lord 
conquers and leads his Church through tribulation and per- 
secution to certain victory and eternal glory.” He also 
remarks that the value of the book is quite distinct from any 


206 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

human exposition of its prophecies ; that it was not designed 
to gratify idle curiosity concerning the future, but for a 
practical, religious end. “Prophecy,” he says, “in the nature 
of the case, remains more or less obscure until it is fulfilled. 
And as the Old Testament became clear only in the New, so 
the Revelation of John can be perfectly understood only in 
' the triumphant and glorified Church. Still it has been a 
book of consolation and hope to the Church militant in every 
age, especially amid her great persecutions and struggles; 
and it will remain so till the Lord come again in glory, and 
the New Jerusalem come down from heaven as a bride 
adorned for her husband. He who cannot lie assures his 
people, ‘ Lo, I come quickly. Amen.’ And his people answer 
with the holy longing of a bride for her spouse, ‘ Yea; come, 
Lord Jesus !’ ” 32 

3a History of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 108. 




THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


207 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE BIBLE IN TIIE WORLD’S LITERATURE. 

mHE Christian world is presenting an anomalous spectacle 
at the present hour. There never was a period when 
her sacred volume, embodying the world’s faith and salva- 
tion, had so wide a distribution, or was exer- Bible never 

before so 

cising so mighty an influence upon the world’s Sbuted? is ’ 
civilization and progress. Nations, both Christian and un- 
christian, that heretofore have forbidden the introduction of 
the Bible, have ceased their opposition, and the leaves from 
the tree of life for the healing of the nations are falling upon 
every land. In more than two hundred different languages 
the peoples of the earth are permitted to read the word of God 
“in their own tongue, in which they were bom.” By a 
divine conviction as to its authority and power, which unites 
nearly all the branches of the visible Church in wonderful 
harmony of sentiment and charity, the great societies of 
England and America are enabled to keep their groaning 
presses constantly in motion in the multiplication of editions 
of this marvelous book. 

While all this is manifest, at the same moment we behold 
one of the fiercest, most systematic, and bitter 

Bitter attack 

attacks upon the Christian Scriptures in the upon 
three leading modern tongues — English, German, and 
French — carried on with extraordinary vigor, and with 


208 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


some outward manifestations of a limited success. “There 
is,” says an earnest writer in the British Quarterly Review, 

“ coming upon the Church a current of doubts deeper tar 
and darker than ever swelled against her before — a current 
strong in learning, crested with genius, strenuous, yet calm 
in progress. It seems the last grand trial of the truth of our 
faith. Against the battlements of Zion a motley throng 
have gathered themselves together. Socinians, Atheists, 
doubters, open foes and bewildered friends are in the field, 
although no trumpet has openly been blown, and no charge 
publicly sounded. There are the old desperadoes of infi- 
delity — the lost followers of Paine and Voltaire; there is the 
stolid, scanty, and sleepy troop of the followers of Owen ; 
there follow the Communists of France, a fierce, disorderly 
crew ; the commentators of Germany come, too, with pick- 
axes in their hands, saying, ‘ Raze it, raze it to the founda- 
tions.’ There you see the garde-mobile , the vicious and vain 
youths of Europe. On the outskirts of the fight hangs, 
cloudy and uncertain, a small but select band, whose wa- 
vering surge is surmounted by the dark and lofty crest of 
Carlyle and Emerson. ‘ Their swords are a thousand,’ their 
purposes are various. In this, however, all agree — that Chris- 
tianity and the Bible ought to go down before advancing 
civilization.” The weight of this mighty movement, how- 
ever, comes from within rather than from without the 
nominal Church. Unbelief at this hour is baptized, and 

Foes under aims her powerful blows against the very foun- 
the parb of 

friends. dations of the Christian faith, in the pretense of 

laboring in the interests of Christianity herself. These sub- 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


209 


tie foes, says Tullidge, have skillfully adapted their attacks 
to the refinement and intelligence of the age, and with a 
great show of learning and science, and not seldom under 
the garb of reverence for the Bible and adherence to Chris- 
tianity, have aimed the most deadly blows against the 
records of our faith. Colenso is a bishop of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, Theodore Parker was an ordained min- 
ister over the “ Twenty-eighth Congregational Church of 
Boston and Dr. Peabody very truly remarks, that the 
author of the “ Age of Reason,” if he had lived at this day, 
might have published his tracts over the title of Rev. 
Thomas Paine, and occupied a professedly Christian pulpit. 
The double object of the present crusade (which is, after all, 
but one, for the Bible is God’s word written, and Christ is 
the word made flesh) is to secure a religion without a Bible, 
and a Gospel without a Christ. Rev. Mr. Frothingham says 
he “reads the Bible as any other book, criticises it, judges it, 
but expects no superhuman wisdom from it, and 0bject of at 
will not call it the word of God, or the book in Christ 00 b a°nd 

the word of 

which the words of God are especially written.” God * 
Another of the same school, in their organ, the “ Radical,” 
blasphemously remarks, “It is time to let Jesus rest. Jesus 
is made a stumbling-block to the generation.” “He does 
not wish to hear any more about him.” It is the same 
condition of things now as in apostolic times : to the un- 
believer Christ is still a stumbling-block, and to the infidel 
foolishness. 

It is affirmed with some appearance of truth, by the 

Westminster Review, that the great body of the “ mental 

14 


210 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


food of the day — science, history, morals, poetry, fiction, 
ana essay — is prepared by men who have long ceased to 
believe.” 

The divine authority of revelation, the authenticity and 
genuineness of the various books composing it, form the 
main object of attack. A German writer has aptly re- 
marked: “One period has fought for Christ’s sepulcher, 
another for his body and blood, the present period contends 
The era of the for his word.” And this is, indeed, the great 

contest for 

the word. question of the hour. The author of Liber Li- 
brorum closes his volume with the forcible remark, “ The 
truth or falsehood of the Bible, its worth, or its worthless- 
ness, is the great question of the day. It is not too much to 
affirm that the life or death of modem society hangs upon 
the issue.” 

We have not a moment’s hesitation or anxiety as to the 

result. The world has not been redeemed to be thrown 

away. Too marked a Providence has guarded the Holy 

Scriptures in darker hours than the present to yield them 

now to unholy hands. “ The gates of hell shall not prevail ” 

against them. “ Heaven and earth shall pass away,” but 

Christ’s “ words shall not pass away.” There has not been a 

No occasion generation since these holy writings have assumed 
to be anxious 

for the result, the form of a distinct and completed revelation in 
which they have not been fiercely attacked, but their foes 
have been shattered like the surges of the sea beating against 
a mighty reef^ while they have remained unmoved as the 
“ Rock of Ages.” “ The waves of the sea are mighty, and 
rage terribly ; but the Lord who sitteth on high is mightier.” 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


211 


It is an encouraging fact, that while the foes of the Bible are 
united like Herod and Pilate in their enmity toward the 
word of God, they are hopelessly divided in the weapons 
they use to accomplish their object. In nothing is the 
weakness of the argument against the Bible more manifestly 
seen than in the lack of agreement among its foes. The 
French school denounces the German, and the English both 
the others; while different writers in the various nations 
utterly disagree among themselves, and strenuously affirm 
the folly of all theories save their own. 

But the Bible has gained, as it always must, from these 
attacks. “ They that be with us are more than Bible gained 

from these 

they that be with them and “ if God be for attacks, 
us, who can be against us ? ” If Germany has produced a 
Strauss, a Bruno, a Bauer, an Eichhorn, a Paulus, and a 
Schenkel, she has also given for the defense of God’s word 
a Tholuck, a Hengstenberg, a Neander, an Olshausen, a Stier, 
a Lange, a Ritter, and hundreds of others less prominent, but 
constantly throwing their sanctified literature as a healthful 
leaven into the intellectual and religious life of the continent. 
If Renan has turned the Gospel story into a romance, and 
made the principal actor a weak enthusiast and deceiver, 
Guizot and a Pressens6 and others have immediately prof- 
fered to France more than an effectual antidote. The tracts 
and essays of too liberal Christians in England, the irreverent 
writings of Theodore Parker, the sad oracles of the authoress 
of “ Broken Lights,” the raw mathematics of Colenso, have 
awakened into life the most vigorous and brilliant pens of 
the age: Westcott, Ellicott, Lee, Rogers, Buchanan, Isaac 


212 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Taylor, and Bayne ; the preachers of the successive Boyle and 
Bampton University Lectures, Alford, M’Cosh, Fisher, and the 
unannounced authors of Ecce Deus, Ecce Homo, Liber Li- 
brorum, et id omne genus, whose names one cannot number. 
It will be understood, of course, in presenting this list of 
names, that we do not indorse or accept all the lines of 
defense chosen by the writers which we have enumerated, 
particularly in the case of the anonymous authors, but men- 
tion them as gallantly accepting the challenge thrown down 
by the enemies of the Christian Scriptures. 

Indeed, one of the most striking evidences of the divine 
This prodigious origin and power of the Bible is the prodigious 
dlvfne origin . lts literature which it has gathered around itself. 
Coming for the most part, as its different books have, from 
the pens of unlearned men, without the training of the 
schools, it has gained the most amazing hold upon the 
human intellect and heart, and set in motion, in all ages, the 
most powerful and polished minds in explanation, illustra- 
tion, and defense of its truths and revelations. How true are 
those expressive words of the apostle Paul, “ The word of 
God is quick and powerful that is, it is quickening, life- 
giving, inspiring! What an immense proportion of the 
literature of the world would leave its libraries if all growing 
directly out of the Holy Scriptures should be removed. 
How has it quickened the human mind in the whole field 
of the natural sciences and of philosophy! To defend or 
attack the Scriptures what an interest has been taken in the 
study of astronomy ! What an inspiration the friends and 
foes of the Bible have felt in the study of geology, from its 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


213 


apparent relation to the early chapters of Genesis. The 
secrets of chemistry have been searched in the hope of pro- 
ducing life without seed, and thus impugning the records of 
Moses. Every theory of mental philosophy is at once drawn 
out into line for the defense or overthrow of the doctrines of 
Scripture. Philology, the origin and antiquity of the race, 
history and geography, numismatics, in short, the whole 
circle traversed by human thought and investigation, have 
been quickened into life by the words of Him of whom it 
was said, “In him was life; and the life was the light of 
men.” 

No book of human authorship could bear up such a litera- 
ture. The only other volume that may be said to have a 
literature of its own, which stands at the head of human 
productions for the universality and power of its influence, 
only serves to show more significantly the superhuman 

vitality of the Bible. Who will think for a Its influence 

compared with 

moment of comparing the influence of Shaks- Shakspeare. 
peare with that of the Bible ? But what is the secret of the 
power of this writer, and whence did he derive it? An 
English clergyman, Rev. T. R. Eaton, has written a book 
entitled “ Shakspeare and the Bible,” in which he seeks to 
show how much the immortal bard was indebted to the 
Scriptures for his illustrations, rhythms, and modes of ex- 
pression. The author affirms that Shakspeare went first to 
the word and then to the works of God. “ In shaping the 
truths derived from these sources,” says an intelligent phy- 
sician, “ he obeyed the instinct implanted by Him who had 
formed him Shakspeare. Hence his power of inspiring us 


214 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


with sublime affection for that which is properly good, and 
of chilling us with horror by his fearful delineations of evil. 
Shakspeare perpetually reminds us of the Bible by an eleva- 
tion of thought and simplicity of diction which are not to be 
found elsewhere.” 1 Kev. Mr. Eaton points out hundreds of 
quotations, allusions, and parallelisms in his works, showing 
Shakspeare’s familiarity with Scripture, his fondness for it, 
and the almost unconscious recurrence of it to his mind. 

Few short poems have impressed thoughtful men more 
than the “Elegy in a Country Church-yard,” by Gray, the 
poet. It has been translated into a number of languages. 
Dr. Johnson read it with pleasure, and Mr. Webster had his 

son read it to him upon his death-bed. We 

Gray’s Elegy. 

are pleased to call to mind the fact that the 
young and cultivated General Wolfe, while sailing down the 
St. Lawrence on the eve of his great victory upon the Heights 
of Abraham, recited the verses of this poem aloud, and said 
at their close, “ Now, gentlemen, I would prefer being the 
author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to- 
morrow !” Gray was a fine scholar, a graduate of Cambridge, 
England, was cultivated by travel and constant study after 
he ieft the University, and yet it was eight years from the 
time he commenced this poem before he finished it and 
allowed it, under the most searching revision, to be put in 
print. But now let us turn to only one of the many psalms 
unequaled in beauty. Take, for instance, the twenty-third, a 
psalm of David. It was evidently written at a sitting. It is 
the production of a man brought up among the flocks and 


1 C. C. Bombaugh, A.M., M.D. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


215 


conversant with the humblest society. He owed little to 

human training, and had no classical models upon which 

he might form his style, or from which he might receive 

liis inspiration. “ This ode,” says Isaac Taylor, “ is not 

to be matched in the circuit of all literature. In its way 

down through three thousand years or more this psalm 

has penetrated to the depths of millions of hearts ; it has 

gladdened homes of destitution and discomfort; it has 

whispered hope and joy amid tears to the utterly solitary 

and forsaken, whose only refuge was in heaven. Beyond all 

range of probable calculation have these dozen 

° 1 Twenty- third 

lines imparted a power of endurance under suffer- psalm ' 
ing, and strength in feebleness, and have kept alive the 
flickering flame of religious feeling in hearts that were nigh 
to despair. The divine element herein embodied has given 
proof, millions of times repeated, of its reality and of its 
efficacy as a formula of tranquil trust in God, and of a grate- 
ful sense of his goodness, which all who do trust in him may 
use for themselves, and use it until it has become assimilated 
to their own habitual feelings. Thus it is that throughout all 
time past, and all time to come, this psalm has possessed, and 
will possess, a life-given virtue toward those who receive it, and 
whose own path in life is such as life’s path most often is.” 

The renowned philologian Henry Stephanus, who wrote an 
exposition of the Psalms in 1562, remarks “that in the whole 
compass of poetry there is nothing more poetical, Renry gte 
more musical, more thrilling, and in some pas- phanus ' 
sages more full of lofty inspiration than the psalms of 
David.” The great German historian, John von Mueller, 


216 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


John Von 
Mueller. 


Humboldt. 


writes in a letter to his brother : “ My most delightful hour 
every day is furnished by David. There is nothing in Greece, 
nothing in Rome, nothing in all the West like 
David, who selected the God of Israel to sing 
him in higher strains than ever praised the gods of the 
Gentiles. His songs come from the spirit, they sound to the 
depths of the heart, and never in all my life have I so seen 
God before my eyes.” Alexander von Humboldt, who was a 
stranger to the Christian faith in the invisible world and to 
the inward experiences of the Gospel, in his great 
work entitled “ Cosmos,” refers to the remarkably 
truthful representations of nature in Hebrew poetry. He 
notices especially the one hundred and fourth psalm as 
presenting “in itself a picture of the whole world.” He 
speaks of the book of Job as being “ as graphic in its repre- 
sentations of particular phenomena as it is artistic in the plan 
of the whole didactic composition,” and says of the book of 
Ruth that it i3 “ a most artless and inexpressibly charming 
picture of nature.” Goethe says of this same book that it is 
“ the loveliest thing in the shape of an epic or an 
idyl which has come down to us ;” and of the whole 
volume of inspiration he truthfully testifies, “ the Bible be- 
comes more beautiful the more we study it.” 2 

This naturally suggests the analogous thought of the per- 
its strong sonal influence which the Bible has exercised 

hold upon the 

fuimind. wer ’ over the strongest and most original minds. 
How affecting the tribute paid to it by the unbelieving 


Goethe. 


2 Hagenbach’s German Rationalism, page 73. History of the Apostolic 
Church, page 166. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


217 


Rousseau : “ This divine book,” he says, “ the only one which 
is indispensable to the Christian, need only be read with 
reflection to inspire love for its Author, and the most ardent 
desire to obey its precepts. Never did virtue speak so sweet 
a language, never was the most profound wisdom expressed 
with so much energy and simplicity. No one can arise 
from its perusal without feeling himself better than he was 
before.” 

Coleridge, in the remarkable letters which he wrote upon 
the Inspiration of the Bible, which have been the suggestion 
and seed-thought of most of the tracts issued by the Broad 
Church party, but which infinitely transcend them in solidity, 
dignity, richness of thought and expression, and, above all, in 
humble and loving reverence for the volume of revelation, 
says, “ In the Bible there is more that finds me 
than I have experienced in all other books put letters ' 
together ; the words of the Bible find me at greater depths 
of my being ; and whatever finds me brings with it an irre- 
sistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy 
Spirit.” At the close of one of his letters he adds, “ The 
fairest flower that ever clomb up a cottage window is not 
so fair a sight to my eyes as the Bible gleaming through 
the lower panes. Let it but be read , as by such men it 
used to be read, when they came to it as to a ground 
covered with manna — even the bread which the Lord had 
given his people to eat — where he that gathered much 
had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no 
lack. They gathered every man according to his eating. 
They came to it as to a treasure-house of Scriptures, each 


-218 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


visitant taking what was precious, and leaving as precious 
for others.” 

How affecting the language of Thomas Carlyle, not a too 
ardent friend of its inspiration, when he says, “ David’s life 
and history, as written for us in those psalms of his, I con- 
sider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man’s moral 
progress and w r arfare here below. All earnest souls will ever 
discern in it the faithful struggles of an earnest human soul 
toward what is good and best. Struggle often 
guage- baffled, down as into an entire wreck, yet a 

struggle never ended ; ever with tears, repentance, true, un- 
conquerable purpose, begun anew.” Of the book of Job he 
says, “Noble book; all men’s book. It is our first oldest 
statement of the never-ending problem — man’s destiny, and 
God’s ways with him here in the earth. And all in such free, 
flowing outlines ; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in 
its epic-melody, and repose of reconcilement. So true every 
way, true eye-sight and vision of all things, material things 
no less than spiritual ; the horse — hast thou clothed his neck 
with thunder ? he laughs at the shaking of the spear. Such 
living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, 
sublime reconciliation ; oldest choral melody as of the heart 
of mankind! so soft and great; as the summer midnight, 
as the world with its seas and stars.” 

“ To all who take up the oracles of God with integrity 
and honesty,” says Bishop Butler, “the Bible 

Bishop Butler. 

will ever possess the peculiarity of meeting 
eveiy want, and appeasing every difficulty. In its pages 
every longing of our nature, the most superficial and the 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


219 


most profound, will find satisfaction. Here provision lias 
been made alike for the tender susceptibility of the child 
and the mature intellect of manhood ; and whatever shadow 
our imperfect knowledge may allow for the present to rest 
upon certain of its statements, the mourner will still fin d 
solace in the songs of Zion, and philosophy still drink 
wisdom from the parables of Galilee. It is true that all 
difficulties may not have been removed which the enemies 
of Christianity have started ; nevertheless, the marvelous 
success with which most of them have already been met 
must convince any fair mind that such as still remain are 
not insurmountable, and that here, if anywhere, it befits our 
weakness ‘ to be thankful and to wait.’ ” 

“ Read the Bible,” says Wilberforce, the statesman, in his 
dying hour to a friend ; “ let no religious book 

. Wilberforce. 

take its place. Through all my perplexities and 
distresses I never read any other book, and I never knew the 
want of any other. It has been my hourly study ; and all 
my knowledge of the doctrines, and all my acquaintance 
with the experience and realities of religion, have been 
derived from the Bible only.” 

“ If any thing I have ever said or written,” said Daniel 
Webster, when commended on a memorable oc- 

Daniel Web- 

casion for his eloquence, “deserves the feeblest ster ’ 
encomiums of my fellow-countrymen, I have no hesitation in 
declaring that for their partiality I am indebted, solely in- 
debted, to the daily and attentive perusal of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, the source of all true poetry and eloquence, as well as 
of all good and all comfort.” 


220 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Milton. 


Newton. 


Lord Erskine. 


« Thy creatures,” said Sir Francis Bacon, “ have been my 
books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have 
BaC ° n ‘ sought thee in courts, fields, and gardens, but I 
have found thee in thy temples.” 

“Let others,” said John Milton, “dread and shun the 
Scriptures for their darkness ; I shall wish I may 
deserve to be reckoned among those who admire 
and dwell upon them for their clearness.” 

“We account,” writes Sir Isaac Newton, “the Scrip- 
tures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.” 
Thomas, Lord Erskine writes, “ My firm belief in the holy 
Gospel is by no means owing to the prejudices 
of education, but it arises from the most con- 
tinued reflections of my riper years and understanding. It 
forms at this moment the great consolation of a life which, 
as a shadow, must pass away.” 

Says M. Guizot, the truly great and venerable French 
statesman, in his “ Meditations upon the Essence 
of Christianity,” “ I have read the sacred volumes 
over and over again ; I have perused them in very different 
dispositions of mind ; at one time studying them as great 
historical documents, at another admiring them as sublime 
works of poetry. I have experienced an extraordinary im- 
pression quite different from either curiosity or admiration. 
I have felt myself the listener of a language other than that of 
the chronicler or the poet, and under the influence of a breath 
issuing from other sources than human.” 

The quick-witted but not over-scrupulous Tal- 

Talleyrand. 

leyrand, expressed his appreciation of the irrc- 


Guizot. 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


221 


sistible hold which the Christian Gospel has upon the human 
mind, when consulted by one of the five directors constitut- 
ing the French government in 1797, in reference to suitable 
forms of worship for the new religious system which they 
had inaugurated, and called Theophilanthropism, (divine 
humanity,) “ I have but a single observation,” said Talley- 
rand, “to make : Jesus Christ, to found his religion, suffered 
himself to be crucified, and he rose again. You should try 
to do as much.” Only four years afterward remarks Guizot, 
“ Theophilanthropism and its apostle, the dream and the 
dreamer, had disappeared from the stage, where they had 
been powerless in influence, barren in consequence.” 3 

Time would fail us to recite the voluntary and heartfelt 
testimonies to the sustaining and inspiring power of the 
Bible which have come from the noblest minds of all ages in 
all Christian lands. 

The Bible has indeed in it, combined in the highest degree, 
what Matthew Arnold quotes from Swift as the two noblest 
of things, sweetness and light. 

What volume of human origin could endure the ordeal of 
constant reading and study, and exhaust a life-time in its 
investigation, supplying until the last increasing stimulation 
and comfort? Thousands of commentators and critical 
scholars have devoted their intellectual lives to the study 
of the Holy Scriptures^ and have ceased, like the ven- 
erable Bede, at once to work and live ; consecrating 
their last breath to the translation or illustration of the 
Bible. 

3 Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity. 


222 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


Prof. Calvin Stowe, in his very interesting volume entitled 
“ The Origin and History of the Books of the Bible,” refers 
to this line of thought. “Let us bring,” he says, “ this 
matter to the test of fact and common sense. These men 
say the Bible is no more inspired than the writings of Homer 
and Shakspeare, and other great men whom God has fitted 
to be the instructors of mankind. Well, then, let us try and 
other books see. Let us for a while use Homer and Shaks- 

tried m the 

place of the S p eare instead of the Bible, say night and morn- 
ing, in our family prayers. When we meet in the house of 
God for his worship ; in the hour of sickness and calamity 
and distress ; at funerals, when all our earthly hopes are 
blighted, and we lay our dearest Mends in the grave ; let us 
then, instead of reading the Bible, take a few passages from 
Homer and Shakspeare. How long do you think this would 
last before we should be glad to get back to our Bible 
again ?” 

A book that has so imbedded itself in all literature and 
science ; that has for nearly two thousand years sustained its 
claim to a divine origin ; that has exercised so marvelous an 
influence over human society, and impressed itself so power- 
a book thus u P on the strongest thinkers of every age, 

the world’s has little to fear from the hasty generalizations 
cannot die. 0 f mo dern science, or from the passionate attacks 
of a superficial criticism, which exposes its object and animus 
in the irreverent and reckless style in which it has clothed 
itself. To these self-confident modern Gnostics, who demand 
the reason why these things should not be believed, we may 
answer as Henry Moore did Southey when he inquired of him, 


THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 


228 


“ Why am not I qualified to write a biography of John 
Wesley?” “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the 
well is deep.” 

We close this volume with the well-known lines of Walter 
Scott, said to have been written in his Bible : 

Within this awful volume lies 
The mystery of mysteries ; 

0 1 happiest they of human race, 

To whom our God has given grace 
To hear, to read, to fear, to pray, 

To lift the latch and force the way ; 

But better had they ne’er been horn 
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn. 


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